


Let Me Be Your Good Night

by malfoys_cousin



Series: Let Me Be Your Good Night [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Also Shakespeare, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Because of Reasons, Bucky Barnes & Steve Rogers Friendship, Bucky Barnes Is a Good Bro, Coffee Addict Tony Stark, Eventual smutty shenanigans, M/M, Oblivious Steve Rogers, Titanic References, Tony Stark is a mess, Underage Drinking, also a lot of swearing, because college, because it's necessary, but he is also adorable, especially Hamlet, just a little bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 03:46:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 44,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5693368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malfoys_cousin/pseuds/malfoys_cousin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by the prompt: "I was studying at 3am and accidentally locked myself out of my dorm room and you have a job with weird hours so you walked by to see me sitting by my door crying in my pajamas. Help me I'm a wreck."</p><p>Alternatively: Tony does not function without caffeine. He just doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here we are, at my very first post. Very exciting. Sorry about any mistakes, I've been staring at this for far too long already. This was originally my NaNoWriMo project that didn't quite make the winning mark. Well, life does that.  
> I have some more stuff that I might keep adding, but we will see.
> 
> Also, none of these characters belong to me, despite my best efforts. This is just a work of fun.

Only one more night of this hell. The test was tomorrow, at 2pm in room 115. He was down to…Tony leaned over and looked at the countdown clock that Dum-E was holding…12 hours and 36 minutes…fuck. This was all Rhodey’s fault. Take Shakespeare, Tony. You need the English credit to graduate. If you would have registered for classes on time instead of being a spoiled brat, you could have taken film studies like I did.

Well, Tony hadn’t been expecting Professor Kendrick to be a crazy bitch that actually tested them on the most specific irrelevant shit. So of course he bombed the midterm—he’d had better things to do then sit around memorizing Shakespeare. He was already accepted into masters programs for both physics and electrical engineering, what the hell was he going to use Shakespeare for? As much as his advisor tried fighting for him (Professor Strange was true to his name, but was generally useful) Professor Kendrick outright refused to let him just slide through the class. So now he had to absolutely ace the final exam so he could graduate and finally drop all the stupid subjects he didn’t need.

Tony rubbed hard at his temples and lifted his mug to his mouth. He groaned when it was empty, dropping his pen to save his place in Othello so he could brew more. Stumbling over clothes and various wires, he flopped across his bed to reach his beloved coffee maker. Rhodey got all pissy when he called it his life force. But, who was he kidding? The thing actually kept Tony functional.

He filled it with water from a bottle on the window sill and rummaged through his drawer for coffee grounds. His hand closed on a solitary flat bag. Six hours ago flashed through his mind when he had poured the last of his coffee and then made a mental note to buy more immediately. No. No. No. Not now. Not today.

Tony scrambled out of bed and tore apart his room looking for coffee—or anything with caffeine. Even that fruit coffee that Rhodey insisted didn’t really taste that bad. (It did.) Nothing. Not even a trace. This was Rhodey’s fault. It had to be. He dug his phone out of his pocket and dialed.

“You’ve reached James Rhodes. I’m currently unavailable, but please leave your name and a brief message. Tony, if this is you, I’m not calling you back until after you’ve finished your final tomorrow.”

Shit. Tony threw the phone down. Most of the dorm was already empty since tomorrow was the last day of finals and Rhodey was the only person he knew with a car. Not to mention, nothing was open at…Tony glanced at the time…2:19am. Now he had less than 12 hours. He slumped back down in his desk chair. He was going to have to go without coffee. Tony pressed a hand to his heart, hardly able to process that thought. He took a deep breath.

“You and me, Dum-E. I’m gonna make it through this, and then we get play with the new soldering gun and Rhodey won’t be here to stop me.”

The robot made no movement as Tony was still in the middle of updating the software and hadn’t powered it back up yet. It made Tony feel a little lonely. Even if Dum-E was far too trigger happy with the fire extinguisher.

Tony sighed and went back to reading all of the material he had ignored the rest of the term. At least he had managed to get a copy of lecture notes—which he literally stole from the guy that sat next to him with the sick metal arm and had photocopied in the administration building. Rhodey told him he wasn’t allowed to ask metal arm guy if he could play with his prosthetic, so he became meaningless to Tony. Well, until Tony needed his notes. He was probably an English major considering how many goddamn notes he took.

Tony paged through the notes on Othello and reread one of the passages that the guy had referenced and circled twice. This was the absolute worst. He was never going to survive this. Ten minutes had passed with no coffee and the words were starting to swim on the page.

Finally, he reached the end of the notes and threw Othello across the room and into a pile of circuits heaped in his closet. All he had left to do was read Hamlet and then probably just reread the lecture notes about a hundred times. He would have killed someone for some caffeine. His eyelids were already drooping and his brain was about to scream from all of this useless knowledge. Tony glanced at the countdown clock. 11 hours and 7 minutes. He wasn’t going to make it without coffee. He wanted to go to bed. He never wanted that! What he wouldn’t do for a damn can of Mountain Dew. Anything.

Tony shot out of his chair. There was a vending machine in the basement. One that was full of bottles of sweet, sweet caffeine. He pulled his wallet out from under his alarm clock and raced out of his room to the stairs. He usually at least pretended that he cared about his appearance. But not today. He did not care that his Scooby Doo pajama bottoms were hanging several inches above his ankle (because he’s had them since he was eight) or that he wasn’t wearing a t-shirt under his ratty Captain America hoodie. He was on a mission.

Tony will never admit to anyone that he genuinely hugged the vending machine when he finally reached it. Nor does anyone need to know that he got eighteen dollars back in quarters because he hadn’t paid attention to what bill he had put into the machine. He drained the first Mountain Dew bottle as the second one was dropped out of the machine. He got a third, just in case, and shoved all of the quarters into his front pocket.

Tony cradled the bottles as he walked back up to his room. He did not know who decided that elevators weren’t necessary for a six-story building, but he hated them. And he was only on the fifth floor. He was certainly not panting when he finally reached his door (he might have been, but that’s his business). He twisted the doorknob and leaned forward, only to ram right into the door. He stumbled back and turned the doorknob back and forth. Stupid automatically locking doors. Tony reached into his hoodie pocket for his keys, but only came up with a fistful of quarters. He dropped the bottles on the ground and they rolled a couple of feet down the hall. Frantically searching the only pocket he had, he threw quarters down in front of his door. No. He pressed himself against the door as if he could use osmosis to get through. His keys were still on his desk.  
Okay, no problem. He’d call campus security. They’d come and open the door. No big deal. Yes, he looked stupid, but they’d all just have a laugh and then he can get back to studying. He still had almost eleven hours.

Well, except his phone was still sitting on his bed. Right where he left it after calling Rhodey.

Okay. There was an R.A. for this. He had one of those… right? Tony was pretty sure his name was…um…shit.

Tony took a deep breath and pressed his fingers to his temples. He was fine. This was fine. Everything was fine. He was totally fucked, but you know, that’s okay. He was actually fucking trying to pass this fucking class, but whatever. He’ll just take a summer class to make up the credit. His dad can remind him of how big of a fucking failure he was. It’s great. It’s fine.

“Are you okay?”

Tony lifted his head and quickly wiped his face. Fuck, was he really crying right now? The last thing he needed was for someone to see him like this. What the actual fuck was his life right now? He wiped his nose off on his sleeve and finally looked up at whoever had spoken to him. His heart dropped into his stomach.

Steve fucking perfect Rogers. The amount of time that Tony spent thinking about that goddamn specimen of a human was bordering on obsessive. No, he’d never actually spoken to him. He was pretty sure that Steve had no idea that Tony even existed. No one ever needed to know that Tony hacked the housing placement program so that he’d be sure to get a room on the same floor as Steve next year. It’s not like he was really doing anything wrong.

“Tony?” said Steve.

Tony’s heart exploded. He knew his name?

“Yeah, it’s uh…on your door?” said Steve. He was blushing.

Tony’s brain finally caught up with him. Shit, he had said that out loud. “Right, yeah. I’m…that’s me.”

“Good.” Steve scratched the back of his neck, stretching his shirt beautifully across his chest. Tony bit down on his tongue, to make sure he wouldn’t say that one out loud. “I…Are you really okay? I mean, it’s three in the morning and you’re…sitting on a lot of quarters.”

“I…” Tony hesitated. Steve clearly thought he was a raging lunatic. There was no real way to save face. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Why did this have to happen today?

“I locked myself out of my room. Do you think I could use your phone to call campus security?”

Steve smiled sympathetically. It was really nice. “I would let you, but they’re actually closed. So you’d have to call the actual police, but they wouldn’t actually be able to do anything until 6 when the security office opens again.”

Tony ran his hands through his hair. Of fucking course it was going to be like this.

“I’d call Phil for you, but he’s out of town until the morning.”

“Who?” asked Tony miserably.

“Phil Coulson? Our R.A.?”

Phil! That was his name. Except that was fucking useless to know since he was no fucking help. Tony tried counting to ten to slow his breathing like Bruce taught him, but he didn’t even make it to three and he was already about to start crying again. Shit, fuck, fuck!  
Steve crouched down next to him and put a warm hand on his shoulder. “You can sleep in my room, if you want. You can take my bed—I can just share with Bucky, he sleeps like the dead.”

Tony’s anger boiled through his pathetic self-pity party. “I only have eleven hours left to study for this fucking final! All of the fucking notes are in my room and I haven’t even fucking started reading fucking Hamlet. I’m going to have to take a fucking summer course and it’s going to fucking ruin my life because I can’t start the fucking masters program until fucking undergrad is fucking over. I only have one fucking play left before I don’t ever have to give a fuck about Shakespeare ever fucking again!”

“So you must be in Kendrick’s class,” said Steve. Why was he still there? With his hand rubbing circles on Tony’s shoulder and his fucking sincere blue eyes? What the fuck?

“Yeah,” sniffed Tony. Fuck, he’d started crying again. Not that it even fucking mattered at this point. Scooby Doo pajamas? He did this to himself. But they were so comfortable. Steve was wearing his usual snug khakis and a plaid shirt. Only he could make plaid look so good.

“Bucky’s been studying for that all week. Kendrick’s really…”

“A huge bitch?”

Steve shrugged. “No, she’s just really passionate about her field. I mean, you of all people should understand that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” snapped Tony, jerking out of his reach. He regretted losing Steve’s warm touch, but who the fuck did he think he was? Tony was nothing like that bitch.

Steve blushed again, all the way down to his shirt collar. Tony tried really hard not to find that adorable. “You’re…I mean, you do some really amazing things, but you…ah, can be kind of hard to talk to unless it’s about computers and stuff.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed. “Computers and stuff?”

Steve scratched at the back of his neck and hung his head. “I’m…it’s been a really long day. I don’t even know what I’m talking about anymore.”

Oh great, now Steve looked like Tony had just kicked his puppy. Fuck, could this get any worse? It was time to turn this stupid shit around.

“I think I’ll just…sit out here until security opens again. Thanks though.”

“If…if you want, you can still come back to mine. Even if it’s just so you don’t have to sit in the hallway.”

Here it was, the golden opportunity to spend time with Steve Rogers. In Steve Rogers’ dorm. Maybe even sit on his bed. The bed Steve Rogers slept in. Tony’s heart fluttered and he took a deep breath to calm it. Because of all the days it had to be this one. He was a complete wreck, crying on a pile of quarters and wearing the stupidest clothes he even owned. But for some reason Steve still invited him to his room. Probably because he was the nicest person on the planet and felt sorry for Tony’s stupid fucking self.

“You can use my laptop, if that helps?”

“Unless you have a copy of all the Shakespeare lecture notes, I don’t think it will,” muttered Tony darkly. Steve’s face fell, and Tony mentally slapped his own forehead. Why the fuck was he sabotaging this for himself? The guy he’s been hero-worshipping all year was offering to help him.

“Well, I mean, you could probably look at Bucky’s notes. I mean, I don’t think he’d really mind,” said Steve. Was he looking…hopeful? Like he actually wanted Tony to go with him? Also who the fuck was Bucky? What kind of name was that?

“Is he even in the class?” asked Tony.

Steve nodded very patiently. “Yeah, he said he sits next to you.” Steve’s blush deepened. “I mean, not that we talk about you, or anything. He just…uh mentioned it once or something.”

Tony considered his options again. Okay, so he could sit here like an idiot in Scooby Doo pajamas and continue crying on seventeen dollars worth of quarters. Or spend time with the hottest guy on campus (probably the hottest guy on the planet) and have a chance at passing his fucking Shakespeare final.

“Okay, yeah, sure.”

Steve perked up like a puppy. Fuck, why did he have to be so adorable? “Great. Do you want help picking up all the quarters?”

Tony pulled himself off the ground and was all too aware of how much his pants hung above his ankles. “No, just leave them. I will need the Mountain Dew before I die from lack of caffeine.”

Steve handed him the bottle that he’d been sitting next to and got to his feet. “I live right there.” He pointed to the door kitty-corner to his. Tony definitely knew this, but he managed to keep that information to himself. Steve unlocked the door, but stopped before pushing it open.

“Uh, so I’m sorry about the music, but Bucky’s been in an Adele phase for the last couple of weeks.”

“That’s fine,” said Tony, shrugging. He did not know who Adele was, but he was not going to let that stop him now that he’s already gotten this far.

Steve pushed the door open and hung his keys on a hook just inside. Sure enough there was soft music coming from the shoddy set of speakers on the dresser between the two beds. The right side of the room was an absolute disaster. Clothes hung haphazardly on piles of books scattered across the floor like a death trap. There were posters covering every inch of the wall on that side of sci-fi movies Tony had never heard of, and several video games he had. Underneath the heavy covers on the bed, a single metal arm poked out and hung off the side of the bed.

“Metal arm guy,” muttered Tony.

“What?” said Steve, stepping through the mess to dig through a pile of notebooks on what must be Bucky’s desk.

“Nothing.”

The other side of the room was probably a military standard of clean. The bed was made so neatly it would probably pass the quarter test (if that was even a real thing). Books lined the ledge above his bed and framed pictures took up the rest of the space. Even his pajamas were sitting on the end of his bed, neatly folded. There was only one poster on Steve’s side of the room and it was the Titanic movie poster.

“I think this one is it,” said Steve, stumbling a bit as he held out a notebook to Tony. It was the right one. But Tony didn’t really want to explain that he knew that only because he had stolen the thing a week ago.

“Thanks.” Tony’s gaze went back to the Titanic poster. “Your favorite movie?”

“Um, no. Bucky couldn’t fit it on his side of the room.” Steve bit his lip, his blush returning.

“You jump, I jump.” Tony smirked when Steve’s blush deepened. God damn he was adorable. “Don’t lie, you’re a total sucker for a tragic romance.”

Steve opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He snapped it shut and reached over to his desk for a laptop that had definitely seen better days. He half-shoved it into Tony’s chest.

“The uh…the password is just ‘password.’ I’m gonna go brush my, uh, teeth. Make yourself at home. Buck could probably sleep through a hurricane, so don’t worry about him. I’ll be right back.” Steve grabbed the pajamas off the bed and his toothbrush from the top of his dresser before darting out of the room like it was on fire.

Not smooth, Tony. Damnit. Fuck.

Tony settled himself on Steve’s bed and opened up the laptop. It started whirring when he hit the power button and he watched as it took a full minute to even turn on the display. How the fuck did Steve function with this piece of shit? How fucking old was this software? Windows ’97? Was he living in the fucking dark ages? Tony paged through Bucky’s notes until he got to the lectures on Hamlet. He was halfway through when the computer (if he could even call it that) finally prompted him for the password. Tony couldn’t help wincing when it spent another five minutes getting the desktop loaded. This poor machine should really put out of its misery. Tony almost cried when he saw that Steve was still using Internet Explorer. He took a deep breath and clicked to open the browser. He stared at the tiny hourglass flipping over for several minutes before gently pushing the laptop as far away from him as possible and went back to the notes. Holy fuck, how did Steve get anything done?

Steve walked back in and put his clothes (also neatly folded) on his desk. He fussed around, pulling out a suitcase from under the bed and taking some plastic bins from the top shelf of his closet. (His shirt rode up when he did that. Tony certainly did not stare. That would have been rude. But oh, so beautiful.)

“Is it okay that I just pack a little?”

“Yeah, I mean, it’s your room.” Tony went back to the lecture notes. What the hell are ego ideals? Tony pulled the laptop back over and typed it into the search bar. At least the internet functioned at a fairly reasonable speed. Tony scrubbed his hand over his face. When was the last time he shaved?

Steve started humming along with the music as he pulled clothes out of the dresser and piled them into the plastic bins. Tony forced himself to look away. The alarm clock next to the bed read 4:38a. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Tony opened the next bottle of Mountain Dew and drained it. His hands were starting to shake from all the sugar, but that was fine. He was awake, that’s what mattered.

“Is there a copy of Hamlet around here?” asked Tony. Steve startled at the sound of his voice and dropped a pile socks on the ground.

Steve glanced over at Bucky’s disaster of a desk. “You can use mine, if you want. Books are alphabetical by author.”

Of course they were organized. Steve Rogers was the strangest college student to ever exist. Tony ran his finger down the spines and plucked Hamlet out.

“Why do you have a copy?” asked Tony.

Steve shrugged. “I like it.”

Tony blinked at him. “So… you know it pretty well?”

“Yeah?”

“So you could teach me?”

“About Hamlet? I’m not like a professor or anything. I just know what they play is… you know, about.”

“Perfect. Come over here and teach me.” Tony scooted closer to the wall as Steve tentatively sat down next to him. Fuck, he smelled so good.

“Okay where should I start?” asked Steve, taking the book from Tony.

“Let’s pretend that I’ve never actually read it.”

“Have you actually read it?” asked Steve.

“Okay, let’s start with the fact that I haven’t actually read it.” Tony smiled up at Steve. “Except the sparknotes. I read those.”

Steve sighed. “Okay so it starts out with the guards trying to convince Horatio that they keep seeing the ghost of the dead King Hamlet.”

“Hamlet’s dead?”

“No, his father is. They have the same name.”

“That’s not confusing, or anything.”

“It makes sense. Anyway, they talk a lot about what’s been happening in the kingdom and how things aren’t really going well…”

 

 

 

 

 

Bucky’s alarm started blaring, making Tony and Steve both jump. Steve pushed aside the heavy blanket they’d put over the window as a makeshift curtain. The sun was out and there were cars lined up at the dorm across the street filled with boxes and laundry baskets.

Bucky’s hand shot out of the blankets and slapped aimlessly at the ledge until he finally found the alarm clock. This was the fourth one he’d had this month since he kept forgetting that his prosthetic was a lot heavier than his other hand. He’d cracked the last one clean in half.

“Did you even go to sleep last night?” croaked Bucky, stretching out underneath the comforter. “Just because I said I’d drive doesn’t mean you get to sleep the whole fucking car ride.”

“Um,” said Steve glancing over at Tony. He rubbed at his eyes and yawned. Steve had never seen Tony like this before—he’d always been so put together and confident. Never even in his wildest dreams had he imagined that he’d get off work and find Tony Stark locked out of his room in Scooby Doo pajamas. This kind of thing didn’t happen to Steve. He even had the same Captain America sweatshirt as Steve. (Something that Steve was never ever going to mention to Bucky or he’d never hear the end of it.)

“What, you’re not going to sass me for my bad language? Is it my birthday?” Bucky finally sat up and his face went through a range of expressions before settling on confused.

“You know Tony,” said Steve, mentally willing Bucky not to make a big deal out of this. Yes, the guy that he’s had a crush on all year was actually sitting on his bed. They can talk about this later when Tony was not right there looking absolutely amazing.

Bucky’s face stretched into an amused grin. “Hey Stark.”

Tony’s posture stiffened. “Hi.” He moved his leg away from where it had been resting against Steve’s for the last several hours. Steve barely stifled his groan of disappointment at the loss. Bucky flopped back into his pillows while Tony climbed out of Steve’s bed.

“Ready for the final today?” asked Bucky.

“Yeah, sure,” said Tony breezily. He straightened out the front of his sweatshirt like it was an Armani suit. “Can I use your phone to call security?”

Steve nodded dumbly. “Or, I could see if Phil is back? He’d be a lot faster.”

“Whatever,” replied Tony, resting a hip at the edge of Steve’s desk. Steve bit his tongue to keep from asking what had just happened in the last two minutes to make Tony act like this. Cold, distant. Five minutes ago, Tony had been giggling at a joke Steve told him. (Just because Bucky thought he was too sophisticated for puns didn’t mean that Steve’s jokes weren’t funny.)

Steve took his phone off the dresser and shot a text off to Phil, asking if he was back and if he could open Tony’s door.

Phil responded seconds later that he’d be right out.

“Phil’s back. He should be able to open the door for you in a minute.”

“Thanks,” replied Tony. “See you around.”

“See you at the final,” called Bucky while Tony walked out the door without so much as a backward glance at Steve. He was just tired, and stressed out about the final. That didn’t stop Steve’s stomach to drop somewhere around his knees with disappointment. He totally screwed up.

“What an asshole,” snorted Bucky, rolling out of bed and shoving his long hair out of his eyes. Steve collapsed back on to his pillows and groaned.

He had completely destroyed his chances. All year he’d been waiting for a chance to talk to Tony, or even to spend time with him and he’d finally gotten it. Tony was funny and sarcastic, and he’d even let Steve sit and probably bore him to tears talking about Hamlet of all things. Of course, it also might have gone better if he hadn't waited until the last possible day of term to talk to him.

“Is that my notebook?” asked Bucky, snatching it off Steve’s bed.

“Yeah, I let Tony look at your notes since he got locked out.”

“Punk, I never said you could.” The opening notes of Adele’s “Hello” crackled through the speakers and Bucky cranked up the volume to sing along. “I’m in California dreaming about who we used to be.” Bucky dug through the clothes on his floor and pulled out a wrinkled t-shirt.

“Seriously?” Steve shook his head when Bucky sniffed the shirt before pulling it over his head. “Also, we’re leaving the minute you get done with that final, so you might want to start packing.”

Bucky pouted and flung himself into Steve’s lap. “But I still have to study.”

“We’ve had a whole week to pack.”

“You’ve had a whole week to pack, some of us have actual finals that aren't just arts and crafts projects.”

Steve shoved him to the floor. “It's because all of my finals were due last week and it's not—”

“I know, Stevie, calm down.” Bucky launched himself back onto Steve’s bed. “Hello from the other siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide!”

“Buck!” Steve shoved him, but he clung onto Steve’s waist. His prosthetic pinched Steve’s side painfully and he yelped, before shoving a hand over his mouth.

Bucky let go and held his hands up. “Shit, I'm so sorry.”

“It’s fine, it didn't even hurt that much,” lied Steve. “And watch your mouth.”

Bucky tucked his left hand under his back. “I haven’t gotten used to the pressure sensors yet.”

“I know, I said it was fine.”

“Let me see—”

“Bucky, it’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

Bucky twirled a lock of his hair around his finger while Steve tried to subtly rub at his pinched skin. That was definitely going to bruise.

“So you finally talked to Stark. How’d it go?”

“Amazing,” Steve deadpanned.

“Oh, come on. He was practically sitting on top of you. Did you tell him his pajamas were cute?”

“No!” Steve groaned and dropped his head into his hands. “He was locked out of his room. I just let him sit in here for a while until he could get a hold of someone that could let him back in.”

“So you got done at work at 3, and it probably took you like 8 minutes to walk back here from the security office. My alarm went off at 10:20,” Bucky sat up to glance around Steve’s side of the room.

“Your bed is still made, so that means he caught you before you’d left to brush your teeth, so I’d say you two have been together for the last…” Bucky scratched his chin while doing the mental math. “Seven and a half hours?”

“What’s your point?” asked Steve. He could feel his face heating up despite his best efforts not to blush.

“Steven. Grant. Rogers. You stayed up all fucking night talking to Tony Stark and all you have to say is ‘what’s your point’? Duh, the point is that you’re still totally into him, I fucking knew it.”

“Bucky, watch your language.”

“Oh, no. This is not about my language, Steve. You told me you were over him!”

“I’m not…I mean I’m…so what if I have a crush on him?”

Bucky howled with laughter and Steve dropped into his pillows wishing he could get sucked up into a hole in the ground and stay there forever.

“He literally said two words to you on the first day of last term. One of those words was someone else’s name.”

“It was loud okay, he probably just didn’t hear me.”

“Thanks, Pete,” said Bucky, still cackling like the worst best friend on the planet. “All because you handed him his pen, which he threw on the floor and was too lazy to pick up himself.”

“Please, Bucky.”

Bucky sat up and yanked Steve into an uncomfortably tight hug. “Poor Stevie. Well at least you gave him your number, right?”

Steve groaned and buried his face even further into his pillows. He didn’t even think of that! Why was he such an idiot?

“Come on, he was here for 7 hours!”

“Please do not rub it in. Don’t you still have to study?”

“No, I’m going to fucking own this final—”

“Bucky!”

“—what I need now is food. I’ll buy you pity breakfast, it’ll be fun.”

“I’m not hungry.” Steve’s stomach took that opportunity to express exactly how hungry it was. Bucky rolled his eyes.

“Put some shoes on so we can go eat some pancakes. Then you can come back here and pack like the crazy person you are. Good thing we’re stopping to pick up Peggy from Yale so I’m not bored to death the entire car ride while you sleep.” Bucky picked up Steve’s face from his pillow. “Hey, you’re a great guy okay? If Stark didn’t see that, then it’s his loss.”

“Thanks, Buck.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty awesome, I know. Now get your damn shoes on, I want pancakes.”

 

 

 

 

 

Tony was going to pass this final. He had a fresh cup of coffee (it was his third, but who was counting?) and his head was now crammed with a ridiculous amount of Shakespeare knowledge. He arrived a full hour before the test and sat in one of the desks surrounded by Bucky’s notes. He had two hours to finish the exam, and then he could go back to his dorm and fucking sleep. 78 hours without sleep was bordering on a strange limit that made him far more dependent on caffeine than he was really comfortable with. Happy had started noticing. That was never a good sign.

“Hey Stark,” said Bucky, sitting down next to him. Tony didn’t like that he knew him by name now. He was going to go back to calling him metal arm guy. That was cooler anyway. “Are those my notes?”

Tony swiftly slid all of the photocopied notes back into his backpack. “Can I help you?”

Buck—metal arm guy raised an eyebrow at him. Tony mimicked the expression. He spent one night (morning?) in the guy’s dorm and now all of a sudden they were speaking?

No. That was not necessary.

“I heard Steve helped you study.”

“And?”

“He knows his stuff. He’s a pretty great guy.”

Tony blinked at him. “Is this your way of telling me to back off or something?”

Bu—metal arm guy grinned and Tony felt like he was suddenly playing a game he never meant to join. He kept eye contact with him though, because no way was this fucker going to beat Tony Stark.

“Steve wanted me to give this to you.” Metal arm guy slid a piece of paper across Tony’s desk. “I guess you must not be as much of arrogant asshole as you like to think you are.”

Tony could see a couple of digits. That was probably Steve’s number. And he wanted Tony to have it? Like to talk to him? Tony swallowed back the hope fluttering up through his stomach and swept the paper onto the floor between them.

“I don’t know, maybe.” Buck—metal arm guy actually looked shocked. Tony picked up his bag and moved to another desk across the room. It was just a game. They probably had a nice long laugh about exactly how they really felt about Tony once he’d left.

Professor Kendrick arrived, cutting Tony’s spewing short. She handed out the exams and prattled on about honor codes or whatever. Tony was already reading the first question. He had this final.

Tony was the last one to finish with only 14 minutes left to spare. After he handed his paper to Professor Kendrick, he made his way back to the door. That piece of folded paper was still on the floor. He picked it up and stuffed it in his back pocket before hightailing it back to his dorm. Fuck, when did he get so weak?

 

 


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was inspired by the prompt: "You're scared of haunted houses and Halloween attractions and I don't even know you, but your friends left you behind (what dicks) so I'm gonna hold your hand and get you through this, alright?"
> 
> Tony really hates clowns and so does Bucky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so here is the next chapter! It got kind of long because I had a hard time deciding where to split it.  
> I also know very little about fixing computers.

After spending an entire summer with Steve’s phone number tacked to the corkboard above his bed, Tony hadn’t sent him a single message. He’d typed and deleted approximately 5,892 variations of “Hi, this is Tony. How’s your summer going?” He probably should have thanked Steve for getting him through that fucking Shakespeare final (which he passed, by the way). But he didn’t do that since he was clearly a huge chicken. 

Tony spent most of the summer developing an A.I. he’d named after his butler. Jarvis thought he was just being annoying, so Tony even changed the A.I. to mimic Jarvis’ British accent. It was actually going better than he had expected. His father mostly left him alone, which was just the way Tony liked their relationship to be. 

Despite a horrible self-sacrificing effort to keep as far away from Steve Rogers as possible, he still made sure they lived on the same floor for the next semester—just a couple doors further away. He’d also made sure that there was a mysterious mix up that left him without a roommate again. If Rhodey wasn’t going to live with him, then no one could. 

The first week went well. Tony actually went to all of his classes (which was much easier now that they were all about things he cared about). He only corrected one professor in front of the class. Things were good. Well, at least until that incident that might have caused the ceiling in the biology lab to cave in. For the record, that wasn’t entirely his fault. Plus there was no one actually in it, so it’s not like anyone was injured. 

His punishment was that he had to work night shifts at the Information Systems and Technology office helping idiots connect to the wireless internet and set up their damn email accounts. There was also the occasional PC user that needed help using the new MacBook they’d gotten for graduation. Frankly, his software was much better, but Tony didn’t like to share. 

Regardless, every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, Tony sat at a desk in the dimly lit office that smelled like burnt popcorn and waited for someone to come in with a problem. This also meant that because he sat there from 6pm until 10:15pm, he had to give up being a part of the robotics club. Not that he was really good with teamwork or whatever, but he got to play with robots and watch everyone stare in awe at his genius. 

He liked being appreciated, okay?

He was now deep into October, and finally past the point of dealing with freshman. If they hadn’t gotten everything set up by now, they never would. It did help that he basically had 4 free hours three times a week to keep working on the programming for JARVIS. He was currently just about as helpful as Siri, but it was still the early stages.

Eight days before Halloween, Steve Rogers walked into the office. (Tony only knew what day it was because no one would shut up about it. Seriously, they were in college, not elementary school.) He was clutching that awful laptop and shuffling his feet like the idea of technology help scared him. Tony pretended that he was concentrating very hard on something, but the reality was that he was typing nonsense into a Word document and trying not to stare stupidly at Steve. JARVIS wasn’t clever enough to tattle on him. Yet. 

“Um…hi,” said Steve shuffling forward. Tony kept typing. Why was he being such an asshole? Fuck. 

Tony took a deep breath and looked up. “Hello, how can I be of assistance?”

Steve shuffled forward a few more steps. “My laptop’s…uh kind of old and it’s been acting different than usual.”

“Different?”

“Like slower?” Tony was fully aware of how fucking slow that piece of shit was. He kept that information to himself. “And it’s started shutting down for, uh, no apparent reason.”

Tony pushed his laptop aside and pointed at the desk at Steve. “Gimme.”

Steve put his laptop down and detangled the power cord from his backpack. He grimaced as Tony opened the laptop up and pushed the power button. Tony actually flinched at the high-pitched whirring that came out of the machine as it booted up. 

“Is ‘password’ still your password?” Tony asked, flipping it over to look at the bottom. How old was this damn thing?

“Uh…yeah,” said Steve, surprised. “I didn’t think you’d remember—”

“Not exactly original.” 

Tony drummed his fingers on the desk waiting for the damn thing to load up. Steve pulled up a chair and sat down in front of Tony twisting his hands together. 

“So how old is this thing?” asked Tony waving his hand in front of the screen as if that would coax it into moving faster. 

Steve shrugged and stared at the ground. 

“JARVIS, what time is it?”

“8:22pm, sir.”

“Did your computer just talk back to you?” asked Steve.

Finally the login screen loaded and Tony typed in the password. “He’s pretty contented so far. Not sure how long that will last before he starts learning how to use sarcasm.” 

Steve’s laptop continued whirring as it tried to load up the desktop. Fuck, this thing moved at a fucking glacial pace. Was Steve just going to sit there until 10:15 staring at him like a lost puppy?

“Do you have any plans for Halloween?” asked Steve when Tony started drumming his fingers again.

“Too old for trick or treating, too young to go to the bar.”

“There’s a bus of people going to Six Flags this Saturday. It sounds like it should be fun.”

“Yeah, I guess if you’re into that kind of thing.” Tony wanted to cry looking at the computer specs. How did Steve even function with this damn thing? It could barely even handle the internet. The processor was literally a piece of shit, it had to be. 

“…I’m probably going though. I’ve never been to Six Flags before.” Steve was apparently still talking. 

“Okay, so if you really want my opinion,” said Tony rubbing his temples. “You should just take this thing out back and put it out of its misery.”

Steve blushed and Tony barely managed to keep his face neutral at the sight of those damned blue eyes staring at him like a lost puppy. What the fuck was this guy? No one should be so hot and so adorable at the same time. It was exhausting.

“I can’t…afford a new one right now,” mumbled Steve. He got to his feet. “Thanks anyway, um I guess I can manage—”

Tony pulled the laptop out of Steve’s reach. Shit, fuck. This wasn’t part of his job. Basic fixes, software only. This piece of shit was going to need an entire reworking of the hardware and the software. How was he supposed to just let Steve keep working like this? Damnit.

“Give me some time with it,” said Tony, sighing. “I’ll…see what I can do. No promises.”

“You don’t have to. I know it’s seen better days.”

Tony cradled the computer to his chest. “Seriously. I mean I still owe you for getting me through that final.” Oh fuck, why did he bring that up? He was perfectly content pretending that never happened. Of all the ways Tony wanted to Steve to think about him, that night was not anywhere close to being okay. He certainly hadn’t worn his Scooby Doo pajamas since then. Never again.

“I’ve kind of been using Bucky’s laptop anyway, so I’m fine without it for a little while,” said Steve. “I mean, if you really want to.” 

Steve didn’t have anything to say about that fucking hot mess of a night? Maybe he’d forgotten? Fuck no, no one could ever forget something so tragic. He was probably just being polite. Damn, why did he have to be such a great person? 

The laptop beeped when Tony tried to open up the browser and let out an earsplitting screech. The screen turned blue and continued beeping at the highest possible volume. Tony forced a shut down and Steve winced.

“Sorry, it does that too. Bucky calls that the blue screen of death.”

“It’s fine,” replied Tony. “It’ll help me teach JARVIS how to fix things.” 

Tony didn’t even have the equipment here to revive this dinosaur laptop. He’d have to extract all the data off the hard drive before he could start replacing the ancient hardware. Oh, this was going to be fun. Tony set the laptop back down and dug through his bag looking for another hard drive he could put all of Steve’s files on before he went all Frankenstein on that fucking ancient computer.

Steve sat back down. Tony’s heart rate spiked for no good reason. Was he just going to stay here and talk to him? Tony was not emotionally prepared for that.

“How was your summer?” asked Steve.

So they were going to have a conversation now? Fuck, Tony was not ready to sit here and make small talk with Steve. The guy was wearing khakis and a plaid shirt like an old man, for fucks sake! What was wrong with a pair of jeans and a t-shirt? Or a hoodie. Or maybe a parka to save Tony’s brain from overheating. Actually, he’d probably look fucking great in that, too.

“Fine, boring, the usual,” replied Tony folding his hands together on the desk. He quickly realized how fucking stupid that looked, so he quickly dropped them into his lap.

“You didn’t do anything fun?” prompted Steve, leaning forward. 

Tony shook his head. This was where he was supposed to ask Steve something, right? Damnit, where’s Pepper when he needs her? She’s supposed to be in charge of all social interactions. Fuck, apparently they’re just going to sit in an uncomfortable silence. This is right where Tony would say something clever that made Steve laugh. His brain wasn’t really cooperating with this plan.

“Where is home for you?” asked Steve, rubbing his hands over his knees. Tony’s mouth went a little dry.

“Long Island. Aren’t you from New York, too?”

“Brooklyn, actually. We could be neighbors.” Steve smiled, so that must not have been a creepy thing to know. 

“Not if you live in Brooklyn,” laughed Tony. “But I’m thinking of getting an apartment here and leave the dorm life behind me.”

“It would be nice to have a kitchen again.”

“Do you cook?” That perfect fucker would definitely be the type that could cook five-course meals without even trying.

Steve laughed. “No, no. The last time Bucky tried to teach me to make grilled cheese I almost set the whole kitchen on fire. But Bucky’s a great cook. I’d kill for his lasagna.”

“Roommates for life?” Tony tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice. He had no right to be jealous. Why the fuck was Steve still here? Tony was severely under-caffeinated and in no mood to be charming. 

Steve ran a hand though his perfect fucking hair. “Something like that. We were thinking about getting an apartment next year, too. Save money on food and probably have a bunch of roommates so rent wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe Clint and Natasha?”

“Good luck separating Romanoff from Pepper. I’m pretty sure they’re planning to take over the world together,” said Tony, leaning back to put his feet up on the desk. He’d only met Natasha Romanoff once but Pepper never shut up about how great she was to have as a roommate. He was a little terrified of her, honestly, but that was no one’s business but his own. 

“Oh yeah, I forgot you and Pepper are friends,” said Steve, his voice lifting just enough at the end to make it sound like a question. Did he think that Tony had no friends? Because he did. He had…three. He was counting Bruce even though he spent most of his time making exasperated noises at Tony. But Tony didn’t find him irritating, so that definitely meant something. 

Were him and Steve friends? No, probably not. Casual acquaintances, maybe. They’ve now spoken a total of twice in two years. That had to mean something? 

Footsteps echoed down the hallway and Darcy Lewis burst through the office door.

“Tony, ohmigod, I have no idea what I did but my computer kicked me off the internet and honestly I’m too stressed out to figure out what happened.”

Steve jumped to his feet. “Sorry, I’ll let you go. Thanks for taking a look at my laptop.”

“Yeah, I’ll bring it back to you when I’m done.” Steve half-ran out the door without as much as a backward glance. Tony certainly did not stare at his ass. (But if he had, he would have noticed how well those khakis fit. Beautiful.)

Darcy sat down in his vacated spot. She handed her laptop to Tony and promptly banged her head down on the desk.

“Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.”

Tony messed with her computer for a moment before handing it back. “You’re all set.”

“You’re a wizard, Tony Stark.” She hugged her laptop before setting it on her lap. “Was that Steve Rogers?”

Tony raised an eyebrow at the smugness in her tone. “Yes.”

“Oh, he is hot. Definitely the kind of guy you take home to meet your grandma.”

“Did you need help with something else, or…” Tony turned away from her and started typing nonsense on his laptop again.

She laughed. “Okay, fine don’t appreciate the fine piece of ass that is Steve Rogers with me. You’re missing out. Anyway, Thor’s having a house party on Halloween and you’re going to be there.”

Tony met Darcy while taking a required political science credit last year. She sat next to him and refused to leave him alone. Then he found out that she was friends with Jane Foster, who basically lived in the astronomy lab. He liked Jane—she was whip-smart and spoke physics. Tony considered asking her out at one point (when Rhodey told him he needed to get over his crush on Steve) but then she started dating Thor and they were inseparable. Thor was a crazy-weird guy that was the football quarterback and student council co-president. Total jock, but he looked more like some kind of hippie body builder—especially because he almost always wore a flower crown in his shoulder-length blond hair. So weird. And always so damn happy, it would be annoying if it weren't for the fact that there was nothing about him to hate. He was a drama black hole—somehow he took negative energy and dissolved it by just being present. 

“Didn't Pepper tell you I'm not a party boy anymore?”

Darcy threw her head back and laughed. “Yeah, okay let's pretend that's true.”

“I'm a grad student now. I've got better things to do.”

“Like Steve Rogers? Do you want me to invite him? I totally will! You're full of good ideas.” Darcy winked at him and Tony had to look away to regain his composure. 

“He dresses like an old man.”

“He certainly doesn't look like one. Damn, he could kill people with his abs, I swear.”

“Why have you seen his abs?” demanded Tony. What the hell? He lived in the same building—shared the same bathrooms and hadn't seen them. Not fair.

Darcy shrugged and put her elbows on his desk. “Ultimate Frisbee. We always make sure he's on the team without girls so he has to take off his shirt.”

“You play Ultimate Frisbee?” 

“Hell no, I don’t even touch the damn thing. I just go in circles and pretend to run into hot shirtless guys.” She appraised Tony. “You could join. And make Bruce Banner come. I can't believe you're friends with him and you've never introduced me. Not cool.”

“Bruce doesn't…what? How have you even seen him? I don’t even see him unless I raid the chemistry lab’s snacks.” 

“First of all, that’s gross. You know what they do in there.” She leaned in closer and smirked. “But Steve Rogers. You should totally go for that. I heard he’s single.”

“When is Thor’s party?” asked Tony. The room suddenly very hot and he pulled at the collar of his t-shirt. Single? Well, that didn’t mean Tony had a shot. 

“Halloween, asshole. You better dress up and not something lame.”

“What are you going to be?” he asked crossing his arms.

She stood up and cradled her laptop in her arms. “You’re just going to have to wait and see.”

Darcy blew him a kiss and skipped out the door. He deleted the document he had been typing nonsense into. He pulled out his phone and told Rhodey about the party, because whether or not they were going was up to Rhodey. Then he texted Pepper and asked what she was going to be for Halloween. They could be a duo. That could be fun.

Pepper did not respond. Probably because she was no fun. 

Tony was left alone with Steve’s ancient laptop and far too much time on his hands. He probably had a spare hard drive in his room somewhere. He dismantled the laptop and extracted the files from Steve’s hard drive onto one of his external drives that wasn’t already almost full. 

 

By 10:15, Tony was already pissed off at how Steve could own such an awful beast. He’d started trying to rebuild the inside, but he didn’t have nearly enough tools to do very much. He might have to find a couple of parts from creative places. 

Once he got back to his dorm, Tony started a fresh pot of coffee and cleared off as much of his desk as he could. That spare hard drive was buried under a couple of his physics textbooks, which took him far longer to find than it should have. He might actually have to take Pepper up on her offer to help him clean his room. If she would have said that she’d just clean it, he would have let her. Immediately. But he had to help, apparently. That wasn’t something he was really interested in doing.

Steve’s laptop put up a fight, but Tony was going to streamline this monster into a dream. In retrospect, he may have gone a bit overboard. Just a little bit. 

 

 

Steve was startled awake by a knock on his door at 5am on Saturday morning. Considering he’d been asleep for only about half an hour he was reasonably pissed off. He’d gotten back even later from the campus security office because some idiot had to puke loudly enough in his dorm bathrooms that the R.A.s noticed. Steve had to wait for the police to show up to charge the kid with a minor and then fill out a bunch of incident reports. He had hoped to get a decent amount of sleep before they got on the bus for Six Flags at noon, but apparently the universe was against him.

Steve half-hoped Bucky had woken up, too, so he could get the door, but no such luck. He was still blissfully asleep, lulled by Adele. Steve slid out of bed and shuffled to the door. He probably could have ignored it, but what if it was Natasha, or Sam, or Clint with an emergency?

Nope. Instead it was Tony Stark, wild-eyed and clutching his laptop. Steve quickly ran a hand through his hair, which was probably in full porcupine mode. Tony was wearing the same Beatles shirt and torn jeans that he had been wearing two days ago when Steve walked into the Technology Services office. Tony’s hair was greasy and sticking up in places like he had been running his hands through it for two days. That somehow didn’t make him look any less attractive. Steve was in far too deep. 

Steve took a deep breath. “Uh, hi.” 

Tony blinked at him for a moment. “Were you asleep?”

“Yes?” 

Tony looked around him at Bucky fast asleep. “What…what time is it?”

Steve glanced at his alarm clock. “5:12.”

Tony’s nose wrinkled and he stroked his hand over Steve’s laptop. “What day is it?”

“Saturday,” answered Steve slowly.

Tony nodded at some point over Steve’s shoulder before meeting his eyes again. “Well, here’s this.” He pushed Steve’s laptop into his chest. “It works now.”

Steve glanced from the laptop to Tony. “Have you been working on this since I gave it to you on Thursday? Have you slept?” 

Tony blinked owlishly at him. “No, I drink coffee.”

Steve was not sure how that was an answer to his questions. “You should sleep, Tony.”

Tony pondered this as though he had never heard of the concept. Steve had a sudden urge to wrap Tony into his blanket and tuck him into bed. But he quickly shoved that idea away. He was just crazy and sleep deprived—that was all. Get it together, Steve.

“Okay.” Tony nodded to himself for almost a full thirty seconds before he turned away to walk back to his room. 

Steve dumped his laptop on his bed and grabbed his keys to follow him. Tony was about to drop at any moment, and he didn’t want him to pass out in the middle of the hallway. Tony was trying to jam his keys into the door frame, so Steve gently pried them out of his hand and unlocked the door. Tony shuffled through the mess of wires and clothes, and collapsed onto his bed. Within seconds he was snoring quietly, his feet still hanging over the edge of his mattress. 

Steve hesitated for a moment before meandering through the mess. He pulled off Tony’s sneakers and gently lifted his legs and set them down on the bed. He reached over to grab a blanket hanging over Tony’s desk chair and draped it over him. This was actually happening.

Steve did not want to be a creep, so he forced himself to walk back to his room. He put his laptop down on his desk and crawled back under the covers before he passed out on the floor. He was not awake enough to deal with his feelings about Tony Stark right now. 

Bucky shook him awake at 11, despite Steve trying to kick him. 

“Six Flags! Steve! Get up! Six Flags!” yelled Bucky, jumping up and down like the six-year-old that he was. Steve grumbled in response, but Bucky just kept shaking him until Steve finally got out of bed. He took a quick shower and forgave Bucky for waking him up when Bucky presented him with a pile of still-warm pancakes. He was still a zombie as they boarded the bus and fell asleep with his head on Natasha’s shoulder while Clint and Bucky were practically vibrating with excitement in the seat in front of them.

He woke up with a crick in his neck and his mouth felt like it was full of cotton balls. They were just pulling into the parking lot and Bucky was already halfway out of his seat. Natasha smoothed his hair down and gave him a piece of gum. 

“At least they’ll sleep tonight,” she muttered as Clint and Bucky stared out the windows and giggled at the park. She liked to pretend that Clint was a hyperactive puppy she’d gotten stuck with, but Steve knew how alarmingly fond of him she was. 

“Nat, can we go on the Batman ride first?” asked Clint, flopping down on her lap. “Please, please?”

Bucky nodded at Steve so hard that he was shaking the seat. It was going to be a very long day.

 

 

Pepper had appeared at some ungodly time and threw Tony into the shower. (Tony was not actually sure how she’d gotten a key to his dorm room. He definitely wasn’t surprised by this information.) She had been saying something about a bus, but he didn’t actually care. He wanted to go back to sleep. He didn’t even know how long he’d been asleep, but it was warm. Pepper was clearing a path from his door to his closet when he got back from his shower feeling slightly more human. (He had been kind of disgusting. When was the last time he’d showered? Had people seen him like this?)

“Pepper, do you mind?” he asked clutching his robe tighter around his shoulders.

She scoffed. “Remember that time you got so drunk that you stripped naked and ran through the East Campus fountain?”

“I do not.”

“I was the one that had to pull you out of it. There’s nothing I haven’t already seen.”

Tony still kept his robe on while he shimmied into his clothes. 

“How do you live like this?” Pepper asked, putting a new bag in the garbage. She’d already filled up the other bag. He didn’t have very good aim, so what? He also didn’t really like to pick up all the stuff that missed the garbage. It was fine. It gave his room character.

“You’re going to get bugs.”

Tony shrugged and pulled on the Smashing Pumpkins shirt that Rhodey gave him. That was kind of Halloween-ish, right?

They boarded the bus and Tony pushed past Pepper to sit by Rhodey. He was a pushover and would totally let Tony sleep on him. Pepper would probably just poke him awake every five minutes and pester him about his sleeping habits. Pepper waved at Natasha Romanoff which caused just the right amount of distraction for Tony to slide into Rhodey’s lap. 

“No, Tony,” mumbled Rhodey, but he moved closer to the aisle so Tony could sit by the window. 

“Honey bear, I missed you.” Rhodey rolled his eyes, but let Tony curl up to him.

“One of these days, Tony. One of these days.”

Pepper took a seat next to a girl with dark red hair that Tony didn’t know. Rhodey pulled out his phone and scrolled through his email while Tony fell asleep against his arm.

 

Roller coasters were Tony’s jam. Firstly, because physics. Secondly, because they were fucking awesome. He dragged Rhodey on every single rollercoaster in the park and then once more for good measure. When the sun set, all of the Halloween events for little kids ended and the haunted houses opened up. Tony wasn’t really a huge fan of being snuck up on by people in a lot of scary makeup, but he supposed he owed it to Rhodey. He stationed himself between Rhodey and Pepper so that he could make Rhodey jump and also hold Pepper’s hand when someone else made him jump. 

So far, the haunted farm house was okay. Tony generally wasn’t huge fan of being chased by a bloody farmer with a pitchfork, but it made Rhodey scream so that made everything worth it. They were halfway through the asylum when Tony spotted a metallic glint huddled in a corner. The lights flickered on for a moment, and Tony only knew one person with a metal hand. 

“Bucky?” he said, despite himself.

Eyes peeked out from behind the metal hand before he hid his face again. Tony dragged Pepper with him (because there was no fucking way he was going to let go of her hand, this place was creepy as fuck) and crouched down next to him. Bucky was shaking and pressed so close to the wall that it was like he was trying to force himself through it. 

“Bucky?” he said again, ignoring Pepper’s questioning look. Someone screamed and Bucky’s entire body jumped. “Where’s Steve?”

Bucky made a strangled whimpering sound in response. 

“Come on, you can come with us,” said Pepper resting a hand on his knee. He peeked through his fingers again and nodded once. Tony offered his hand (because if he was being honest this house was actually freaking him out way more than it should) and Bucky took it. 

Rhodey had doubled back to find them after finding himself walking alone. Rhodey didn’t say anything about the addition of Bucky, but he gave Tony a look that very clearly meant “I had no idea that you knew other people.”

Tony resented that a little bit. He was also holding onto Bucky’s metal hand which on any other occasion would have been extremely awkward, but he didn’t really need Steve’s best friend knowing how clammy his hands were in some mediocre haunted houses. Bucky plastered himself to Tony’s back when a girl in a blood-soaked dress screamed at them from where she was tied to an examination table. Otherwise they made it through without much incident. Well, besides the room with strobe lights giving Tony a headache. 

They stood outside the exit listening to Rhodey and Pepper laugh about the girls that had been screaming in front of them. Tony had to pry Bucky off of his back with Pepper’s help. He stood between them shaking and muttering under his breath in a language that Tony was pretty sure wasn’t English. 

“Did you get lost?” asked Pepper, her hand on his shoulder.

He nodded and flinched when a pirate walked by and cackled at them.

“I can call Natasha,” she said, pulling out her phone. Tony tried to let go of Bucky’s hand, but he clung on like it was a lifeline. They were not friends. This was weird, right? It was even weirder that Tony had spotted him in that corner like a fucking stalker or something. 

“Bucky?” yelled a voice and they all turned to see Steve sprinting toward them with Natasha and two other guys at his heels. “Where did you go? I thought you were right behind me.” 

“You left me in there,” whispered Bucky clinging to Steve. He was still holding onto Tony’s hand which was making this ridiculously awkward. 

“Are you okay? Did you get hurt?” asked Steve checking him over like a proper mother hen. Bucky shook his head.

“Fuck, I hate this place,” he said. He stood still while Steve fussed and Tony felt a hot wave of jealousy crash over him. But he had no right to be jealous. Pepper held onto Tony’s other hand and squeezed it reassuringly. Sometimes he hated how well she knew him.

“Tony found him trying to hide in a corner,” said Pepper, and Tony wasn’t sure how he felt about Steve’s attention suddenly turning to him.

“Thank you,” said Steve, so sincerely that Tony couldn’t make his mouth say any actual words. That was new. What the fuck?

“Have you been through the cemetery yet?” asked the blond guy behind Steve. He was bouncing on his toes and had his arm draped around Natasha’s shoulders.

“Not yet,” replied Rhodey, “We were headed there next.”

“Why?” groaned Tony. This was no longer fun, he wanted roller coasters. 

“I think Bucky and I are going to get back in line for the Batman ride,” said Steve. 

Bucky punched him in the arm. “No.”

“Dude, no. I want to get scared by some fucking corpses,” said the annoying blond guy. Tony saw him give Bucky the thumbs up. Steve scratched the back of his neck and glanced around at Natasha.

“Are you sure, kotyonok?” she asked. Bucky nodded forcefully. 

“Good, you can keep holding Tony’s hand because I sure as hell won’t,” said Rhodey.

“How quickly you dismiss our love!” yelled Tony, ripping his hand out of Pepper’s so he could press it to his heart. That fucker. 

“Clint, you’re in front,” said the other guy Steve was with to the blond guy. Apparently the blond guy was Clint. That sounded vaguely familiar. Pepper had probably said his name at one point.

“What’s wrong, Sammy, did I scare you?” 

“No, man you just fucking breathe down my neck the whole time and I don’t want to smell like all the fucking hotdogs you’ve eaten today.”

“Sam,” warned Steve, and other-guy-that-wasn’t-Clint rolled his eyes.

Clint and Sam (that was probably his name, or close enough) bickered the whole way to the cemetery entrance. Pepper and Natasha walked arm in arm, probably talking about world domination. Rhodey was arguing on and off with Clint about whether or not ghosts were real, and Tony was smack in the middle of Steve and Bucky. He was also still holding Bucky’s hand. It was kind of nice to hold someone’s hand. Bucky was not his first choice given the present company, but he accepted it anyway.

Clint did end up being the first in their line, followed by Sam and Rhodey. Pepper and Natasha trailed a little behind them, and Tony, Steve, and Bucky brought up the rear. The first person that jumped out at them from behind a tombstone made Bucky stop dead in his tracks. Steve pushed him forward, but kept his hands on his shoulders to keep him from bolting again. 

They barely made it through the cemetery. It was going alright until a skeleton dropped down from the ceiling in the mausoleum and Bucky dragged Tony and Steve straight to the ground.

“Bucky, come on,” said Steve patiently. He grabbed Bucky under his arms and hoisted him back to his feet. Tony was awkwardly pulled up by Bucky and it made him stumble backward into Steve. And no, he did not blush like a teenage girl. It was way too dark to see that anyway.

While Bucky was clearly having the worst time of his life, Steve’s eyes were bright and he took in everything with a bemused smile. He was genuinely enjoying himself. Even when he was startled it only took him a moment to recover before he was grinning again. Who the hell likes getting the shit scared out of them? Steve was weird as fuck. But also really fucking hot. Abs. Holy shit.

Their next destination was the Haunted Circus. Scary murderous clowns, what could go wrong? So, so much. 

They entered through a very creepy animal graveyard, which was completely fucking unnecessary. Pepper kept glancing back at Tony, but he pointedly ignored her. While his feelings on clowns were made perfectly clear, he was not going to chicken out in front of Steve. It also really helped that he was still holding Bucky’s hand. (He was never going to admit that, by the way.) 

Music blasted out of speakers as soon as they entered the first tent. Tony used his free hand to cover one ear and Bucky squeezed his hand harder. There was a ticket booth on one side just before a sharp corner. Rhodey yelled as soon as they had rounded the corner, so Tony mentally prepared himself for that. 

He was not prepared for a clown to jump out of the ticket booth and scream in his face. He probably screamed, but he couldn’t hear anything over his heartbeat thudding through his ears. He threw himself backward into Bucky, nearly knocking them both to the ground. The clown cackled and returned to the booth while Tony tried to catch his breath. A hand on his arm had him screaming (probably again) but it turned out to just be Steve.

“You okay?” he asked, trying (and failing) to hide a smile. If he was laughing at Tony he could fuck right off, but not at this exact moment. Later, when there wasn’t the possibility of a clown jumping out at them.

They went around the corner to a long hallway filled with pillars that were the perfect size for clowns from hell to hide behind. Tony covered his eyes with his hand and clung as close to Bucky as he could. Steve’s hand stayed on his shoulder, guiding him through (because fuck those sneaky clown fuckers). He still flinched when he heard Bucky whimper. Steve jumped when one came up behind him, but then he laughed as though he had been in on the joke the entire time. 

They walked into the next room after finally catching up with everyone else. The walls were bare and there was a single light bulb hanging in the middle of the room, swinging ominously. Tony barely made out the cracks around a couple of hidden doors set into the walls before the bulb went out, plunging them in darkness. Tony didn’t even try to keep a pretense that he was okay. He heard someone (Clint?) yelp as a laugh echoed through the room. Rhodey let out a loud yell and Natasha hissed at him to watch where he was going. A pair of glowing eyes appeared directly in front of Tony and he pushed his face into Bucky’s shoulder so hard that it knocked them both forward. His heart was pounding, he could barely even breathe. Holy shit he was going to fucking die in here.

“It’s just me,” whispered Steve as warm hands curled around his shoulders.

“Clint, I will murder you!” said someone, probably Sam.

“Still alive Bucky Bear?” called Clint.

“Fuck off,” hissed Bucky.

“Bucky?” called another voice in a harsh whisper. Glowing eyes reappeared along with crazed laughter in Tony’s ear.

“Steve, make them stop,” whimpered Bucky, stepping backward onto Tony’s toes.

“Keep walking,” said Steve, pushing them forward. 

That was a mistake.

They stumbled into each other until they found a strip of light. Clint pushed aside the heavy fabric and Pepper held it open until they made it through. They walked into the hall of mirrors complete with bloody handprints on the glass and more clowns darting through passages to show up and laugh at them. Clint knocked Sam over when he ran face first into a mirror. Pepper and Natasha screamed and then laughed when they accidentally walked into each other. Tony took deep breaths and held Bucky’s hand so tightly that he thought his hand might be forever imprinted in the metal. Steve’s hands stayed on his shoulders. Tony was so fucking glad.

Finally, they jostled out into a big open room where clowns were outright wandering around. The music was so loud that Tony covered his ear again. Steve’s hand left his shoulder and settled over his other ear. The lights flickered on and off, making Tony dizzy and disoriented. This was a fucking terrible idea. He kept turning his head and coming face-to-face with clowns cackling. On the other side of the room was a claustrophobia tunnel. The lights flickered off and he could hear Rhodey swearing and Clint’s muffled laughing. They lights turned back on in time for him to see Natasha pull Pepper through. 

“No,” muttered Tony, shaking his head. Not these fucking things. Not that he was really claustrophobic, but hadn’t he been through enough trauma in this place without a tunnel trying to suffocate them? 

“You’re okay,” said Steve, steering them forward. “Just close your eyes we’ll get you through it.” 

Bucky squeezed his hand. “Come on.”

Tony let them pull him forward. He took his hand off his ear so that he could cling to Bucky’s arm. The moment they got to the tunnel entrance, the walls closed in. He kept his eyes closed, but couldn’t keep his breathing steady. His lungs weren’t working, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move. His heartbeat was pounding in his ears.

Then it was over. Tony sucked in air and half collapsed onto Bucky. Okay, if he could stop being so fucking embarrassing that would be great. He should have stood with Pepper because she sure as hell wouldn’t start thinking that he was the biggest fucking chicken of all time.

Fuck.

“Oh no,” groaned Steve. 

Tony peeled his eyes open, praying to whatever deity that would listen that there wasn’t another damn clown. It wasn’t, it was just a rotating tunnel illusion. Tony built one of those in the summer when he was nine. It was cool. Well, at least until Jarvis accidentally walked through it without paying attention and fell through the railing. That kind of ruined it for Tony.

“This is probably the least scary thing we’ve done all night,” said Bucky, following after Pepper. Rhodey and Clint were holding onto each other as they crashed into the railing like a couple of drunks. Sam was trying to hold himself up between the railings to keep from falling over. Natasha, who now terrified Tony more than ever, walked straight through the tunnel without as much as a stumble. Pepper clung to her giggling as Sam knocked Clint over completely. Bucky pulled Tony, who ended up pulling Steve, onto the bridge. Bucky started out okay taking several steps before slowly drifting into the left side railing.

“Gonna make it, Barnes?” yelled Clint. They had all stayed to watch their progress. 

Tony took a couple more steps before vertigo finally hit and he veered off to the railing as well. 

“Fuck off,” said Bucky, laughing for the first time that evening. 

Tony thought that it was actually going okay. Well at least until he was suddenly pulled to the ground by Steve. Bucky tripped and fell backward on top of Tony. Not once did his grip on Tony’s hand waver. That was commitment. 

“Steve,” whined Bucky, trying to pick himself up and failing spectacularly. “Just close your eyes.”

“I’m going to throw up,” whispered Steve faintly. 

“No, you’re not,” Bucky told him before finally managing to get to his feet. He hauled Steve up by the collar of his shirt and pushed him forward. Natasha climbed back up and pulled Steve to keep him moving. Tony was slammed with a rush of affection for Steve that he quickly shoved to the back of his mind. Could he be more ridiculous right now?

Although, now he lost protective barrier between his back and the clowns. Fucking fuck.

There was now a group of (probably) high school girls behind them that had caught up after they spent so much fucking time getting through the tunnel. They screamed so loud that Tony felt a headache throbbing between his eyes. Damnit. Steve was still up between Bucky and Natasha and Tony wanted to yank him back, but he also didn’t want to look even more pathetic. 

They walked through the last room which was painted in black and white stripes that circled the entire room from the floor, up the walls, and across the ceiling like they were walking up Beetlejuice’s sleeves. Strobe lights started pulsing as they ducked around huge bunches of black and red balloons. Finally, they reached the outside. Tony almost kissed the ground he was so glad to be out of that hell house. Clint was cackling with laughter and running in circles around Sam chattering about the hall of mirrors. Bucky glanced back at Tony and shot him a relieved smile that Tony couldn’t help but to return. He was so fucking done with this. If he wanted the shit scared out of him, he was going to watch horror movies in the comfort of his own damn room with a lot of popcorn and Rhodey. Maybe Pepper. 

“So we should—” Clint was cut off by the revving of a chainsaw. Tony spun around to see a bloody clown holding a very large chainsaw. It cackled and ran at them. Tony sprinted without thinking. Pepper let out a scream and Tony could hear more footsteps but he didn’t give a fuck about whether or not they had made it. Bucky somehow managed to stay connected to him, and Tony figured that he would have dragged him with regardless. He ran all the way to the entrance of the Tomahawk before finally stopping to catch his breath. He sank to the ground with his back against the ride sign and Bucky collapsed next to him, muttering again. Something Eastern European? Russian maybe?

“I have never seen you move that fast,” said Rhodey as the rest of them finally caught up. He laughed and Tony kicked at his legs. He easily sidestepped Tony. Fucker.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t want to get killed by a fucking murderous clown.”

Steve wasn’t even breathing heavily. What the fuck.

“Alright, time for zombies!” said Clint, clapping his hands together like a two-year-old.

Rhodey and Sam nodded. No fucking way. Clowns were bad enough, but fucking zombies? No. They ate brains. Tony was far too valuable for that kind of shit. He watched 28 Days Later, he didn’t need any more of that in his life.

“No zombies,” he said. He crossed his arms as everyone turned to look at him. He probably looked kind of weird because he was still holding Bucky’s hand. He was starting to think he’d need to surgically detach them at this point. 

“Tony,” pouted Rhodey, “Zombies are the best.”

“I just lost ten years of my life to a bunch of clowns. Abso-fucking-lutely not.” He side-glanced at Bucky who looked relieved. “I’m going on roller coasters.”

“Fine, Tony. Don’t forget that the bus leaves at 10,” said Pepper, dragging Rhodey away.

Clint muttered something that sounded a lot like “pussies” and Natasha elbowed him in the ribs. Tony respected her that much more. 

“Coming, Steve?” asked Sam, when Steve lingered back with Bucky and Tony.

Steve stared at them like a deer in headlights, and glanced back at Bucky.

“Steve, go,” ordered Bucky, giving Steve a push. “You hate roller coasters.”

“Blasphemy,” said Tony. How could anyone hate roller coasters? They were literally the epitome of awesome.

“If you come we’ll be an uneven number and you’d have to sit by yourself,” continued Bucky, pulling Tony to his feet. 

“Steve. Zombies. Now,” called Clint.

“Okay, have fun,” said Steve, taking a reluctant step away. Bucky pushed him on and pulled Tony away in the opposite direction. 

“Why would Steve sit by himself?” asked Tony as they stood in line for Goliath.

“Dude, I’m not letting go of your hand until my chances of being chased by the undead is back to zero.” 

A skeleton jumped out from around the corner and Tony rammed into Bucky’s chest as he tried to stay as far away as possible. The girls behind them screamed and laughed as Tony tried to regulate his heartbeat again.

“You’re probably right,” replied Tony, straightening up.

“This was a terrible idea,” replied Bucky as they listened to the creepy music blaring out of the speakers.

“I’m only here for the roller coasters.” Tony worried his lip between his teeth. “So Rogers doesn’t like roller coasters? That’s weird, right.” He was trying to go for causal, but it came out a little desperate. Why should he give a fuck about how Steve felt about roller coasters?

Bucky nodded. “I made him go on the Cyclone at Coney Island and he threw up.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep. We drugged him up with a bunch of those motion sickness pills today, but they’ve worn off by now.”

The line started moving and they shuffled forward. 

“Hey, since I’ve been holding your hand for like the last hour, can I ask…?” Tony trailed off, not entirely sure how to politely ask someone why they didn’t have an arm. Bucky’s face was impassive, but his shoulders tightened. Tony wished he had enough sense to keep his fucking mouth shut. Where was Pepper? She was supposed to keep him in check.

“Frostbite when I was sixteen,” Bucky answered after a full minute of silence. “Wouldn’t be so bad if the surgery hadn’t gotten so fucked up.” 

Tony nodded and they walked forward with the line. He had about a million questions about the prosthetic running through his mind, but he kept his fucking mouth shut for once. 

“It’s not a big deal,” said Bucky sighing. “I got shortlisted for a prosthetic trial and here we are.”

“It’s pretty cool.”

Bucky’s gaze darkened. “Yeah, sure.”

Fuck. How was he supposed to salvage this?

They continued shuffling forward in silence. Although Bucky hadn’t let go of his hand. Tony focused on his shoelaces and listened to the guys in front of them talk about some app he’d never heard of. It sounded pretty mediocre though.

“How’d the Shakespeare final go?” asked Bucky, finally breaking the silence as they approached the front of the line.

Tony didn’t fucking want to talk about what was possibly the worst and most embarrassing night of his life. But he supposed he deserved it.

“I used your notes.”

“I know. I was literally there when you stole them out of my bag.”

Tony reeled back to look at him. “And you just let me?”

Bucky shrugged. “Yeah, I saw your attempt at notes and I felt bad for you. I would have been pissed if you hadn’t given them back.”

“What are you, some kind of Shakespeare scholar?”

“English major. We’re a note-taking people.”

Tony shuddered. “That sounds awful.”

“Yeah, because physics is a walk in the park.”

Tony narrowed his eyes. “Is this what our relationship has come to? Petty arguments about our life choices?”

Bucky spluttered. “Relationship?”

“You boys gonna ride today or what?” called out one of the ride operators. He looked like he was having a really shit day and was just the right size to pick them up and throw them out of the park without even trying. Tony dragged Bucky forward and sat in the two open seats. They fumbled a bit, trying to do up their seat belts with only one hand each. (Nope, Tony was not ready to let go, there were still murderous clowns running loose.) 

They went on three more roller coasters (the Batman one, twice) before they had to make it back to the bus. True to his word, Bucky did not let go of his hand until they were back in the parking lot at MIT. Because of this, Tony had to sit between Steve and Bucky on the narrow bus seat. He found that he didn't really mind—even when Bucky started snoring on his shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Bucky and Tony are such bros right now. I'm sorry, I just love them both too much.   
> Don't worry, more Tony and Steve in the next chapter.


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tony is an awesome Batman and has a lot of vodka.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Wow I wasn't really expecting such a positive response to this story, so thank you very much!!
> 
> I'm thinking that I will update this about once a week. 
> 
> Just so no one is really concerned, everyone in this story is over the age of 18. However, as this is the U.S. and the drinking age is 21, there is some underage drinking in this chapter.
> 
> Also, if you'd like to see how obsessed I am with Sebastian Stan, you can enjoy my [Tumblr](http://flyingworddisasters.tumblr.com)  
> (Please let me know if that link failed, I know far too little about using cool features.)
> 
> As usual, I apologize for any glaring mistakes. Anyways, enjoy chapter 3!

“So you just held his hand for the rest of the night?” asked Pepper. She had splayed out on his bed and was painting her nails a venomous green. It looked kind of cool actually. Terrifying, but cool. 

“Yeah, even though I'm pretty sure he wanted to punch me.”

“You tend to have that effect on people.” She finished off her last nail and sat cross-legged on his bed. She was exercising an insane amount of restraint by not cleaning. Not that Tony would have minded if she did. He was a little impressed.

Tony shrugged and spread his hands out on the comforter. He'd probably look cool with green nails. It'd be very edgy. 

“Do you want me to paint your nails?” asked Pepper. She eyed him very critically, which he did not appreciate. 

Tony drummed his fingers on the bed. “It'd look stupid as fuck.”

“So it would fit in with how you normally look.”

“Virginia Potts,” scolded Tony. “You were the one who picked out all of my clothes.”

“You still won't let me fix your hair. My job is not finished.”

“It's fine just like this.” He put his arms over his head protectively.

“Birds are eyeing it as potential real estate.”

He thrust his hands back out at her. “Paint my nails.”

“Say please.”

“I don't have time for manners.”

Pepper poked him in the forehead. “Everyone has time for manners. You're just a brat.”

Tony stuck out his tongue at her. 

“Very mature.”

“Thank you.” 

Pepper pulled his left hand into her lap and started painting his nails. 

“So do I have to like apologize or something?” he asked, watching her closely.

“To me?” she asked, in her usual exasperation when he didn’t understand how to function like a human being. He wasn’t good at feelings. They were complicated and messy and awkward. He didn’t need that. It wasn’t applicable. Well… 

He lowered his head. “No, to Barnes.”

Pepper finished painting his middle finger before responding. “I don't think you need to apologize. You shouldn’t have asked him if you could take his arm apart.”

“I never asked him that.”

Pepper raised her eyebrows. “Really?” He nodded. “I'm so proud of you! I would’ve thought that would have been the first thing out of your mouth.”

“I can be human. Sometimes. But I definitely thought about asking. Does that count against me?”

“Not as long as you kept it to yourself.” Pepper moved on to his right hand. “I think you may look better with your nails painted than I do.”

“I look better than everyone. It's a gift and a curse.”

Pepper rolled her eyes and blew on his hands. “I didn’t know that this fast-drying stuff actually worked. It does look good, though.”

“That’s also why I will be going to this party as Batman. With green nails, apparently.” He grabbed the mask out of his drawer and put it on with a flourish.

“You’re seriously going as Batman?” asked Pepper, raising that judgmental eyebrow. Rude. 

“What’s wrong with Batman?”

“Rich genius with a butler?”

“Your point?” Tony pushed the plastic mask off his face. “Are you saying that I might tip people off about my real identity?”

Pepper rolled her eyes so enthusiastically that her entire head moved with the effort. 

“What are you going to be?” demanded Tony. Batman was a damn good idea considering he’d only had two days to put a costume together—he’d gotten really distracted fixing Steve’s laptop. Also, Pepper did not need to know that he owned a Batman mask just because he could. It was cool. 

“A nurse.”

“A slutty nurse?”

“Tony.”

“Well? Do I need to assign Rhodey to protect you, because I will? And he definitely would.”

Pepper folded her hands together in her lap. Not a good sign. “Do I need to assign him to protect you?”

Ah yes, now they were going to talk about Alexander Pierce’s infamous party last year. He was waiting for her to bring that up. (He may have been hoping that she would totally forget about it, but of course she didn’t. She never forgot anything.)

Tony tried to wave off her stare. “It’s not going to be like that.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Really? Because I recall you saying those exact same words to me and it turned out to be precisely like that.”

Oh Brock Rumlow’s party was getting thrown in there, too. How exciting.

“Pepper—”

“Don’t even think about it, Tony. If I have to spend another night like that, I will not hesitate to take drastic action.”

“Like what? Hire Rhodey to babysit me all night?”

Not that it would be a terrible idea. Was it really his fault that he had even worse judgment when he was drinking? Doesn’t everyone?

Pepper sighed and rubbed her temples with her fingertips. Another bad sign. “I just want you to be safe. And I don’t really like watching you self-destruct.”

“Harsh.”

“True,” she shot back. 

So he got kinda drunk and made out with a bunch of people he normally would’ve stayed away from. So what? He was fine. Well you know, until someone dropped him off just outside a hospital because he’d stopped breathing. His mother had flown in and sat by his side for three days. His father had been too busy.

The second time it happened at Rumlow’s party, Pepper made him swear off parties and was annoyingly stuck to his side every time he tried going out. It’s a lot harder to pull when he had a redhead interrogating everyone that so much as laid eyes on him.

The only reason he was allowed to go to this party was because Thor was throwing it. He was deemed an acceptable host by Pepper and Rhodey.

“Pep, promise me you’re not going to hover all night.”

“That is not a promise I’m willing to make.”

“Pepper, how am I supposed to have fun and get laid when you’re there scaring everyone away?” whined Tony flopping down next to her.

“Why don’t you try going on dates instead of random drunken hookups with strangers?”

“I thought that’s what dating was?”

Pepper patted his head and gave him that pitying smile he hated so much. He groaned and put his head in her lap. So what? He was terrible at dating. What else is new? Most people only wanted to date him because he’s Tony Stark. It was easier to sleep with them and move on. Healthy? No. But effective.

“I worry about you. How’s your robot coming along?”

“JARVIS is not a robot, he’s an A.I. He is also awesome.” Tony paused. “He called me ‘honey’ yesterday, though and I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

“Why did he call you that?”

“I think I called him that first and he just copied me. He’s been doing that a lot lately.”

“Oh good, another you.” 

Pepper ruffled his hair and jumped off the bed. “Okay, so we’re meeting at Rhodey’s room at 10. And if you are not there, we are leaving without you and you’ll have to walk alone in the dark.”

“I’m not afraid of the dark,” muttered Tony. Plus his phone had a flashlight. Just in case.

“Or I suppose you can find Barnes and hold his hand if you get scared,” she said, a sly smile spreading across her face.

He flung his pillow at her. “CLOWNS WITH CHAINSAWS, PEPPER! IT WAS SELF-PRESERVATION!” 

“Calm down, it was just a joke. It was very cute though.”

“Pepper, seriously.”

She laughed. “I haven’t seen you warm up to anyone that quickly.”

Tony crossed his arms. “I did not warm up to him. I was saving myself.”

“You could’ve held my hand.”

Why the fuck didn’t he just hold her hand? Well, he was holding her hand until that stupid cyborg had to be all lost and pathetic. Then he went on roller coasters with Tony, so actually, Tony got more roller coasters and fewer zombies. He was the clear winner in this scenario.

Pepper leaned in and pecked him on the cheek. “I know you don’t like this part, but please humor me.”

Tony groaned and hid his face in his pillows. “We’re going to talk about feelings, aren’t we?”

“We are.”

Tony took a deep breath.

“First of all, I’m really proud of you for making a new friend—”

“Because I’m apparently five years old.”

“—and for being supportive of his needs. Also, he’s really hot and I would totally date him.”

“You should.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You think so?”

Tony shrugged. “I’m not going to.”

Pepper rolled her eyes. “This is not about you.”

“It is, but continue.”

“Did you know that Steve was really jealous that you and Barnes held hands? I think you might actually have a chance with him.”

“Can we please stop—” The rest of her sentence finally caught up with him. “What?”

“You fell asleep on the ride home, so you didn’t see his face. We had to pry you and Barnes apart. I thought you might never be separated.”

Tony flopped into his desk chair. “That’s enough feelings for today. I’ll see you at 11.”

“It’s 10. I’m not kidding when I said we’d leave you behind.”

 

 

Steve stared at his laptop. He had been doing this for an absurd amount of time. But he was also not sure that this really was his laptop. He pressed the power button and it burst into life, taking only five seconds before prompting him for his password. No noise, no fuss, it just powered up. Never, in the entire three years he’d owned this laptop did it start so quickly. And to be fair, for the however many years it had already been in use by his school district, it also had probably never started so quickly. He typed in his password (which was still ‘password’) and the desktop loaded immediately. 

It had been five days and it was still working like this. Steve was not even sure that this really was his laptop anymore. 

“Dude, can you stop being weird and help me bleach my hair?” Bucky held out a pair of gloves and a box of hair dye. 

“And that’s not weird?” Steve slid his laptop onto his bedspread. 

Bucky sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ve had my hair soaking in this coconut shit all night. I smell like a piña fucking colada thanks to Tasha.”

“Language. Also, why isn’t she here helping you?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Because she has class until 6 and by then it will be too late.”

“You’re putting in a lot of effort for a stupid Halloween party.” Not that Steve really had any room to talk. He’d been putting his costume together since July. 

“This is not just a Halloween party. This is Thor Odinsson’s Halloween Party. And we were invited because that yappy girl from Ultimate thinks you’re hot.”

“Her name is Darcy.”

“Well, her apparent obliviousness to the fact that you are hella gay worked in our favor.”

Steve felt his face growing hot. “Can you not yell that to the entire floor?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Stevie, please help me bleach my hair. We can sit in the bathroom and gossip about your huge crush on Stark.”

“You’re the one that held his hand the whole night,” Steve muttered. He’d tried not to sound bitter, but from Bucky’s pouty lower lip, he hadn’t succeeded. 

“Are you jealous?”

“No,” answered Steve quickly. Maybe a little too quickly judging by the smirk spreading across Bucky’s face.

Bucky leaned into Steve and his nose was slammed with a thick wave of coconut. “We were just being bros. Plus, he asked about my arm and you know how much I hate that.”

“He did what? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Bucky pushed him back down onto his bed. “Chill out, it was fine. I can fight my own damn fights, punk.”

Steve shoved Bucky. “Jerk”

 

Surprisingly, no one cared that Steve and Bucky were sitting in one of the shower stalls making the entire bathroom smell like Bucky’s stupid hair bleach. Bucky’s hair was gathered up in a flowered shower cap and he was playing some game on his phone while they waited for the timer to go off. Luckily, someone had the foresight to make sure the bathrooms were pretty well ventilated. Steve was still sitting on the window ledge to keep his asthma from acting up. His hands were itching for his sketchbook, but he didn’t want to risk bringing it into the bathroom. Not to mention that it would look creepy. He settled for scrolling through some of the art blogs he followed.

“How’s Project Blond coming?” asked Clint rounding the corner.

Bucky didn’t even look up from his game. “Not all of us are as blessed as you two fuckers.”

“Bucky,” chastised Steve.

Clint jumped up to sit next to Steve. “You should be jealous. I just hope it doesn’t turn out like my roommate’s shit bleach job. He said his sister thought it looked good, but seriously.”

Bucky finally looked up. “Oh, is he gonna be gone tonight so we can crash at your dorm?”

Clint scratched his chin. “I don’t know, dude. He’s been around a lot lately.” He frowned. “It’s fucking annoying.”

“Pietro is nice,” Steve added. Clint merely rolled his eyes. 

“You don’t live with him and listen to his fucking weird techno music at all hours of the day.”

“Can’t you just take out your hearing aids?” asked Bucky with a snort. 

Clint scoffed. “I can still—No, it’s the principle of the thing. Also why do you want to crash at mine?”

“It’s closer and your futon is heaven,” sighed Bucky. 

“You’re a weird one, Barnes.”

The timer went off on Steve’s phone and he jumped down to help Bucky get all of the foil out of his hair.

“Did you grab the shampoo that Tasha gave me?” Bucky asked, rummaging through the small pile of bottles at his feet. Steve had no idea that bleaching your hair took so many steps.

“This one?” asked Steve handing him a bottle that had rolled under the bench. 

“No, it’s got a purple label. Shit, I bet it’s still on my desk.” He gave Steve a pouting look.

Steve stripped the gloves off his hands. “Fine, fine.”

“And hey, do you want to bring me a towel since you’re going back to the room?” Bucky flashed him a smile. 

“And do you want to grab me a sandwich while you’re at it?” added Clint. Steve flicked them off and they both burst into laughter. 

As Steve was walking back into the bathroom with the towel and weird shampoo, he ran directly into Pepper Potts as she stepped out of Tony’s room. 

“I’m so sorry,” he said, shuffling backward. At least he hadn’t completely knocked her over. 

“No problem.” She waved her phone. “Texting and walking at the same time is dangerous. So do you have any Halloween plans for tonight?”

Steve gaped at her awkwardly. “Yeah, um, we’re going to Thor’s… he’s having a party.”

Pepper smiled at him. “That’s great. I think we’re going, too. I mean you can’t really say no to Thor.”

Steve nodded even though he had no idea what she was talking about. He’d never actually met Thor. Darcy had cornered him a couple of days ago and made him promise to go. For some reason he’d said yes, and then Bucky had gotten ridiculously excited.

“We’ll see you there, then,” said Pepper. Steve nodded dumbly and then face-palmed after she had walked away.

Did that mean Tony was going? What if he thought Steve’s costume was stupid? What if he totally embarrassed himself in front of Tony? Or what if Tony didn’t even notice him? Should he talk to Tony about his laptop? Or about Six Flags? And say what? I really wish you would have been holding my hand. No, that sounded like he was some kind of needy child.

“Did you get lost?” called Bucky from the shower. Steve held the bottle over the curtain rod and Bucky plucked it out of his hand. “Did you remember the towel?”

“On the hook.”

Bucky started humming to himself, and Steve sat next to Clint on the window sill to watch him play Flappy Bird. 

“I thought that game got deleted because it made people kill each other.”

Clint shrugged. “Nat got it for me in some kind of sketchy way that I didn’t ask about. If I feel any murderous urges, I’ll let you know.”

“What game?” yelled Bucky over the shower spray.

“One I’m not sharing with you!”

“Bitch!”

“Bucky,” chastised Steve. Bucky’s hand appeared over the curtain to flick him off.

Clint tapped furiously on this phone screen and swore under his breath. “Whatever, you got Nat to plan out your costumes together and you didn’t even invite me.”

“That’s because you’re going to be Robin Hood. Just like you’ve been for the last two years I’ve known you. You could’ve been a part of the group if you were willing to give up on Robin Hood.”

“Whatever, dude,” said Clint. “You’re just jealous that I look hot as Robin Hood.”

“Not true.” Bucky got out of the shower with his towel wrapped around his waist. “Am I now blond enough to join the club?” He spun in a circle.

Clint shrugged without looking up. “You’ll never be blond at heart.”

Bucky glared at him before picking up the hair dye supplies from the floor. “It will look better when it’s dry. I’m going to be the fucking best Harley Quinn.”

“Tony Stark is going to Thor’s party,” blurted Steve. That should not be his main concern, but it was suddenly the only thought running through his mind. 

“So?” replied Clint. “Damnit, Flappy Bird!”

Bucky gave Steve a dangerous smile. “Are you finally going to get the balls to ask him out?”

“Shut up,” hissed Steve. This was a public bathroom. Tony could walk in at any time. What if he heard them? He’d probably just continue to think that Steve was a pathetic loser. Awesome, that was just what he needed.

“Don’t tell me to shut up, you started talking about him!” Bucky cackled. “Maybe you can hold his hand next time.”

Clint snorted. “Admit it, you enjoyed that.”

Bucky’s face dropped into a scowl and he threw one of the shampoo bottles at Clint. He caught it easily. “Fuck off. Those were very different circumstances.”

“Bucky, language.”

“Steve, just let it go. I’m a grown-ass man. I’ll swear if I want to.”

 

 

Black jeans, check. Batman shirt with attached cape, check. Mask, check. Tony stared at himself in the reflection of his window. Looking good for a costume he put together in two days—thanks to express shipping.

Phone, check. Keys, check. Wallet…nah, he wouldn’t need that. He was fucking ready to party. He had exactly…he checked the time on his phone…ten minutes to get to Rhodey’s. Shit fuck. Now he was going to have to run if he wanted to make it on time. Fuck.

He stuffed his phone in his back pocket and bolted out the door. Why did Rhodey live on the other fucking side of campus? Why didn’t he just live with Tony so that he didn’t even need to travel any distance to be in the same place? Inconsiderate.

 

When Tony made it to Rhodey’s door panting (fuck he was really out of shape, what the fuck?) he stuck his head under the faucet in the kitchen trying to rehydrate. 

“I have cups,” said Rhodey, swinging his keys around his finger.

“I made it,” said Tony trying to stifle his heavy breathing. He wasn’t very successful.

“Barely,” replied Pepper. She had on blue scrubs and had a stethoscope hanging around her neck. Not exactly the sexy nurse that Tony had imagined. But she was still Pepper, and obviously smoking hot. 

Tony finally turned to Rhodey and pouted. “Carry me.”

“Absolutely not.”

Tony’s pout died as he took in Rhodey’s costume. He had on green scrubs and a long white lab coat. Wait a minute…

“It’s going to be freezing, but I didn’t want to worry about losing my coat,” said Pepper, pulling her long red hair up into a ponytail.

“You can wear the coat,” said Rhodey slipping the coat off and holding it out to her. “I’ll be your nurse.”

“But what if it’s hot at the party?”

“Then I’ll take it back.”

What the actual fuck? No way. They wouldn’t.

“Did you two plan a group costume without me?” asked Tony, pointing his finger at Rhodey.

Rhodey sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I told you he’d get mad.”

“What the fuck?!” Tony was not aware that his voice could make it to that octave. Good to know.

“Tony, I promise to wear a couple’s costume with you next year,” said Pepper. Had she not rolled her eyes, he might have felt a little better. But no. Fuck them.

“Fuck you guys.” Tony pulled a bottle of vodka out of the cupboard and took a long swig. “This is mine now.”

“I thought that was your emergency bottle,” said Rhodey, trying to pull it out of his hands. 

Tony swatted his hand away and took another drink. “Well, as I was blindsided by your betrayal, that’s a clear emergency.” 

“Don’t be so dramatic, Tony. It’s just a costume.”

 

When they got to Thor’s massive house, it was already packed with people. The night was still young, so there was still plenty of alcohol lined up across the kitchen counters. Orange and purple string lights were hung around the walls. There were fake candles glowing on almost every available surface giving off the only source of light. 

Darcy met them at the door and handed Tony a cup of something that was bright pink. She was dressed as Dorothy, but instead of a small dog, she was carrying around a basket full of vodka bottles. 

“This is my very special punch,” she said proudly.

Tony took a long drink. “This just tastes like watermelon vodka.”

Darcy beamed. “I put some 7up in there. Not enough, according to Jane, but what does she know?”

Tony grinned. “You’re my new Pepper. I like you more.”

Pepper rolled her eyes and accepted a drink. “I love your costume, Darcy.”

Darcy spun in a circle and almost smacked some guy dressed as Superman in the face. “Thanks! I always knew that having a pair of red glitter heels would come in handy.”

“There’s no place like home,” toasted Rhodey. Darcy clinked her glass against his and drank.

“Have you seen Steve Rogers yet?” asked Darcy, jumping a little and making the bottles in her basket clink together ominously. Tony’s stomach swooped uncomfortably and he took another drink in an effort to make that stop. Fucking fuck.

“He did mention he was coming,” said Pepper, holding onto Darcy’s elbow to steady her as she swayed slightly. Tony choked on his drink. What? Since when did Pepper talk to Steve? And why the hell hadn’t she mentioned that he was coming?

He whirled around to face Pepper. “What the fuck?” he mouthed. She took a drink and pretended not to see him. 

“Okay, well, I’ll keep an eye out for him. I hope that his costume doesn’t require a shirt.” Darcy winked and walked down the hallway, disappearing into the crowds of people.

Tony rounded on Pepper. “Why did Steve Rogers tell you he was coming?”

She herded him further into the house. “I ran into him when I was leaving your room. I didn’t think it mattered.”

Tony lowered the Batman mask over his face. Luckily it left his chin and mouth free so he could still drink. “It doesn’t.”

It really fucking mattered. Fuck. Okay, so new plan: get laid and stop thinking about Steve Rogers. Then, maybe he could have an interaction with him that didn’t result in Tony getting humiliated. What would that even be like? Nope, it doesn’t matter. He was moving on.

And all was good. Rhodey disappeared into a crowd of people around the kegs in the kitchen, so he and Pepper commandeered a spot on a couch. They drank Darcy’s punch and laughed at other people’s costumes. He hadn’t even seen Thor yet, which was weird considering it was his party, but whatever. There was a guy that was in a pretty spectacular Batman costume that Pepper chose as her favorite of the night. Because she was a traitor, obviously. Tony told Darcy that she had the best costume and earned himself one of her tiny vodka bottles. Well played.

Then that motherfucker Aldrich Killian had to show his motherfucking face. He was wearing a fucking t-shirt that said “this is my costume.” That fucker didn’t ever dress up for the fucking costume party. Did Pepper actually just say she liked his shirt? Fuck no!

“I like your costume,” said Killian, smirking at Pepper. “I’ve been feeling a little under the weather. Do you think you could check me out?”

Tony gagged and then scowled at Pepper when she giggled. What the fuck?

“Excuse me, Virginia. We need to talk right now,” hissed Tony.

“I don’t think we do,” she replied, pushing his head away from her ear. He pulled her up off the couch and around the corner. 

“Absolutely not,” said Tony before she could open her mouth. “You are not allowed to make nice with Albert What’s-his-face.”

Pepper rubbed her temples. “His name is Aldrich.”

Tony knew what his name was. He just didn’t give a fuck.

“He is a nice guy. You are the one that always starts fights with him.”

“I do not!”

Pepper raised her eyebrows. “I know all about what happened in Organic Chemistry last year.”

Tony cringed. That was not something he wanted her to find out about. So he had a bit of a rivalry with Killian. No big deal. They were in two totally different programs now. Plus, it was not Tony’s fault that Killian was a fucking idiot. If Killian wanted to take stupid shortcuts and almost lose his academic scholarship, that wasn’t going to be blamed on Tony. He also didn’t mean to sleep with Killian’s girlfriend. That was a coincidence. 

“That doesn’t make him any less of an asshat,” replied Tony.

Pepper flicked her hair over her shoulder and adjusted her stethoscope. “I’m going back over there and I’m going to flirt with him. I love you, Tony, but go spend time with Rhodey.”

“Whatever happened to bros before hoes?” he called after her.

She didn’t respond. Fuck. Well, fine then. He’d go find Rhodey.

 

“Tony, you’re my best friend, but please go the fuck away. I have the potential to get laid, and you’re not going to ruin this for me,” said Rhodey, talking very quickly. The girl he’d been flirting with was watching Tony with thinly veiled disgust. Rhodey was really going to pick a girl dressed up as a Playboy Bunny over him? Actually, Tony could accept that. But Tony was the one that was supposed to get laid tonight. His friends were being incredibly uncooperative. 

“But, honey bear—”

“Goodbye Tony. Stay out of trouble.”

Tony sighed loudly, but Rhodey just ignored him. Fine, he’d go find someone that was super hot all by himself.

He turned the corner and spotted his target. The guy was dressed as Captain America and he had amazing broad shoulders and a great ass. Oh yeah, Tony was totally going to sleep with him. Tony took a couple steps forward, but someone else had gone up to Captain America. Some blond guy dressed like Harley Quinn handed him a drink. Wait a minute, that blond guy had a metal hand… no. No way.

Captain America turned his head to talk to blond guy and holy shit it was Steve Rogers—Steve was Captain fucking America! 

Tony’s mouth was suddenly very dry. That’s okay—he had vodka to remedy that. Well, shit. Steve’s costume was awesome, definitely not one of those lame store-bought costumes. He even had a shield strapped to his back. Bucky was twirling a baseball bat in his hands while Steve laughed at something he had said. 

Tony took a deep breath and an even deeper drink of vodka. Yes, liquid courage. He was just going to walk up and compliment Steve’s costume. Very chill. No big deal. 

Then, a blonde girl dressed as a police officer walked up to Steve and clung to his arm. He smiled at her and Tony’s heart dropped somewhere around his knees. She went up on her toes to kiss his cheek and Tony tore out of the room. He finished off the last of his bottle and grabbed another two from Darcy’s basket. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked. He ignored her and darted up the stairs. There were about ten different signs stating that the upstairs was off limits, but fuck it. This was the worst fucking party ever.

 

 

Steve was drunk. Probably. The world was tilting a little bit and everything seemed a lot funnier than usual. A couple of girls had complimented him on his costume and then they kept talking to him but he wasn’t super interested in listening. His mom would have scolded him for being so rude. He did run into Peggy’s cousin, Sharon, which was cool. She was dressed up as a police officer, which seemed really funny because she was studying Criminal Justice at Boston University. Apparently she was visiting her boyfriend, but Steve had already forgotten his name. 

Bucky was super proud of how awesome he and Natasha looked as Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. Steve was now a little afraid that Bucky would keep his hair blond forever. 

They would have been on time to the party if they hadn’t had to sew the ivy leaves back onto Natasha’s dress. Apparently fabric glue just wasn’t enough. Well, Steve did most of the sewing so that Natasha could do Bucky’s hair and makeup. Clint just lay on Steve’s bed and watched Netflix on Bucky’s laptop. (Steve was still super protective of his laptop now that it was suddenly super efficient.) Sam helped them get ready, but then bowed out to finish a paper. By the time they had actually arrived, the house was packed with drunk people. 

The worst part was that he hadn’t even seen Tony. Bucky had continued to bring him a seemingly endless supply of beer to make him feel better about it. Natasha had spotted Pepper almost immediately, but Tony wasn’t with her. Steve was too afraid to ask where he was, so instead he just drank a lot of beer. Clint roped him and Bucky into a game of beer pong. Bucky was terrible, so he got bored quickly and started taking shots with Natasha. 

He’d lost Bucky a while ago, and he thought he saw Natasha in the kitchen. Clint was challenging people to keg stands, so Steve figured he needed to stay as far away from that as possible. Thor’s house was huge. There was also apparently only one bathroom on the main floor that girls kept walking out of in large groups. Steve had been trying to get into the bathroom for like the last half hour, but he hadn’t managed to fight through clans of girls. He wasn’t even sure what half of them were dressed as. 

Steve’s bladder was starting to really protest all of the beer he’d been drinking. Drastic measures needed to be taken. He slipped up the stairs and let himself into the first room he found. It was empty, but was not connected to a bathroom. The next door he tried was locked, so he went up to the next floor. As he reached for the doorknob, the door burst open and he found himself with an armful of Batman.

“Ohmigod, are you Captain America?” slurred Batman. His voice was very familiar. 

“I’m gonna use the bathroom now,” replied Steve, trying to push him aside. 

“I’ll come with you.” Batman slid to the floor while Steve stepped over him to get to the toilet. Honestly, he didn’t even care. He just wanted to pee. 

Batman struggled to his feet and clung to Steve when he tried to leave. “Hey, did you know I’m a huge fan of Captain America? I had Captain America sheets on my bed when I was a kid.”

“That’s cool.” Where was Bucky? He was better with drunk people than he was. Was Steve still drunk? He kind of felt like it. He was thinking a lot harder about walking down the stairs than usual.

“You’re funny,” said Batman. He stroked Steve’s arms. 

“Who do you belong to?” asked Steve. Batman just giggled and tightened his grip. Steve turned the corner to walk down the stairs to the main floor and Batman dropped like a deadweight. Steve fell over on top of him wincing when an elbow made contact with his ribs. Steve was just glad they hadn’t fallen down the stairs. 

“What the heck?” said Steve, detangling his limbs.

Batman’s mask slid off and Steve found himself face to face with Tony Stark. Oh man. 

“Hey, so I think we should make out,” said Tony, inching forward.

“But you think I’m Captain America,” said Steve leaning away. “That’s not my real name, and you’re Tony Stark.”

“Steve, I’m drunk, not blind.” Tony ran his hands through Steve’s hair and gave him a wide grin. “I want to kiss you.”

“You’re supposed to ask, I think,” replied Steve. He blinked slowly, not really sure why Tony’s hands were so magical. “Why do you want to kiss me?”

“Steeeeve.” Tony crawled up into Steve’s lap. (He took several deep breaths to calm himself.) “I always want to kiss you.”

Steve melted as Tony pressed their lips together. Tony’ grip on his hair tightened and Steve moaned into Tony’s mouth. What the heck was going on? Was this real? God, he hoped this was real. Was he so drunk that he was hallucinating? Did that happen? 

“Hey—oh,” said someone and Steve jolted back. 

Darcy was standing on the stairs with one hand on her hip and an eyebrow raised. She was dressed as… well, Steve didn’t actually know what. Her dress was very short, and she was kind of blurry. Wait, blurry? How drunk was he? 

Tony tried to pull Steve back, but Steve kept leaning further away. His face was very hot all of a sudden.

“No,” pouted Tony, scooting forward in Steve’s lap into a very dangerous position.

“Uh hi?” said Steve, trying to smile at Darcy. He thinks he pulled off a smile. Maybe.

“You guys aren’t allowed up here, although I must say congrats to the both of you,” she said with a smirk. She held out the drink in her hand. “This is an apology from Pepper. I added some more vodka, because she was pretty stingy.”

Tony finally noticed Darcy was there and took the drink from her. She sat down next to them and petted Tony’s hair. He drank half of it before Steve took it from him. Tony was already really drunk. Steve did not want him to pass out, because then they could not keep kissing. He kissed Tony Stark. That really happened. Wow.

“You make a cute Dorothy,” said Tony, smiling. He dropped his head onto Darcy’s shoulder.

“I was going to be Rainbow Dash, but Thor told me My Little Pony wasn’t allowed. He’s such a hater.”

Tony nodded slowly before pawing at the cup in Steve’s hand. “This mine?”

Steve shook his head. “Wait, Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz?”

Darcy and Tony laughed, making Steve feel incredibly stupid. 

Tony leaned forward and knocked his head into Steve collar. “We should watch it sometime.” He pressed his lips to Steve’s neck.

“Get a room,” said Darcy laughing. She carefully got to her feet. “But not here, or Thor will kill you. Go back downstairs.” She shoved Tony’s head away from Steve’s neck and skipped back down the stairs. “Make good choices!”

“Come on,” said Steve, trying to get Tony off of him. He also didn’t really want that so he wasn’t trying that hard. 

“No,” said Tony, before his lips went back to Steve’s neck. Steve shuddered and nearly dropped the drink in his hand. “Finish that for me?” Tony muttered into his jaw.

Steve drowned the rest of the drink while Tony’s lips made their way back down his neck. The alcohol burned its way down his throat—he was pretty sure it was pure vodka. Tony laughed as Steve coughed. 

“Don’t make me send Thor up there!” yelled Darcy. 

“Let’s go,” said Steve, chasing after Tony’s lips.

“To mine?” suggested Tony. His eyes were bright and his lips were red and swollen. Steve wanted to kiss him forever. He also wanted to paint him just like this—he was a work of art, all hard lines and soft edges. Steve wanted to run his hands over every inch of him. And then maybe his tongue.

“Are you sure?” asked Steve. 

Tony grinned at him. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“Okay,” whispered Steve. “Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!!!!!
> 
> Things are about to get so awkward. I'm excited.
> 
> [Here](http://the-life-of-bucky-barnes.tumblr.com/post/132588803892/on-instagram) is a link to the AMAZING art that inspired Bucky's costume. It is not mine. I'm in love with it, just a little bit.


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything is awkward and there is no coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, but life happened. But mostly good life things, so that was nice. 
> 
> Anyways, life has calmed down and I should be able to post things on a normal schedule now.
> 
> Enjoy!

What was that noise? Humming? No…it sounded more like breathing. Why was it so loud? Was someone squeezing Tony’s head? That needed to stop. Oh, nope, just a headache. How much did he drink last night? Far too much. Pepper was supposed to keep count. Oh, Pepper’s probably making all that breathing noise. So inconsiderate. He’ll open his eyes just a little…

Gahhhhhhhhhhhh! Fuck that! It’s way too fucking bright. Absolutely not. Whyyyyyyyyy?

Okay, take two. The only way the coffee will start is if Tony gets out of bed. Why? Nooooo. He’s definitely making a voice activated coffeemaker. JARVIS, make a note.

Oh, he’d have to actually talk for JARVIS to hear him. Fuck. Talking would take too much effort. Also, if he opened his mouth he’s not totally his stomach would stay inside his body. Why can’t JARVIS just read minds? That would probably be a terrible idea. But…coffee.

Tony attempted to open his eyes again and lasted about three seconds. That was an improvement at least. His head was pounding and something must have died in his mouth. But he was really warm. So warm. Especially considering he was not wearing a shirt. He wriggled around slightly. Nope, he wasn’t wearing clothes at all. What an interesting development.

He inched closer to the mysterious heat source. It smelled good. Like sweat, and soap, and…lemon? It was nice. He moved closer until his nose brushed a warm expanse of smooth skin. He wanted to bury his face in it until his headache went away.

Yeah, that wasn’t working. He needed coffee. But he was so warm…

Caffeine wins.

Tony opened his eyes again and found himself staring at a well-sculpted chest. Very nice. Well done, Tony. He tilted his head up to see blond hair and a truly beautiful jaw line. Oh yeah, he made such good choices. Tony was the best. 

WAIT. ONE. FUCKING. SECOND. He knew that jaw line. He had spent far too long imagining what it would be like to follow that line with his tongue, not to recognize it. That was the jaw line of Steve Rogers.

With his heartbeat thudding loud enough to double the intensity of his headache, he scooted up to get a better look. That was definitely Steve Rogers. The Steve Rogers. He had sex with Steve Rogers? He had sex with _Steve Rogers_.

Tony needed coffee right now. This could not be real. What the fuck? His skull was throbbing. Was that normal? Steve Rogers!

Tony glanced around. Okay, so at least he was in his room. That was a fairly decent sign—he knew there was coffee nearby. He carefully reached over Steve to the bottle of ibuprofen sitting on his nightstand. He took two and closed his eyes, waiting for them to kick in.

So he remembered going to Thor’s party. There was also a lot of vodka. A basket of vodka? Did that make sense? Why was there a basket? Oh, right, Darcy had a basket of vodka. Why did he drink so much? That was so stupid. What else? There were stairs…and Aldrich Killian. Fuck that guy! Why does he remember that fucker and not Steve? There was also a bathroom at one point. He’s pretty sure that’s where he drank most of the vodka because Rhodey and Pepper ditched him.

But then…nothing. So he must have had awkward drunk sex. Awesome.

Tony needed to leave. Just grab his clothes and go. Then he can pretend none of this ever happened. He can go right back to pining in peace. No one needs to know. Okay, decision made.  He was definitely going to grab his clothes and run.

Except he was in his own fucking room. He can’t leave his own room. Or he could, but he’d look like an asshole. Besides, where would he even go? Just go on a walk of shame all the way to Rhodey’s? That would require putting on clothes _and_ going outside. The sun was out there. No.

Steve sighed and wrapped his arm around Tony to pull him closer. He was being cuddled by Steve Rogers. This was his dream. Was this a dream? Fuck. That would be the worst! Although, that would not explain why he was sore in very specific places. He needed to remember that exact experience—somewhere that had to be buried under his headache. He needed coffee. But then he’d have to move. Why was the world so cruel?

Tony tucked one of his legs between Steve’s and curled closer. Did it really matter? No. Not when he was warm and cuddled up close enough to run his hand down washboards abs. Yes. He deserved this. He could totally do this for a ridiculous amount of time.

But…coffee? No, not now.

Steve’s breath hitched and Tony closed his eyes. Don’t wake up yet. Unless waking up meant that Steve was going to move and make coffee. That would be amazing.

Steve groaned and stretched before his breath hitched and he went very still. Tony squeezed his eyes shut and resisted burying his face in Steve’s chest. Go back to sleep. Don’t let this be over yet. He’ll sacrifice caffeine to stay right here.

Steve started pulling away, unraveling his arms from Tony’s. Steve paused before sliding out from under Tony’s head, making sure to catch him instead of letting him drop onto the bed. That was nice of him. The bed shifted and a hand ran through Tony’s hair. Awesome. Tony opened his eyes and was blessed with the sight of Steve Rogers. And what a spectacle he was. The hand immediately left his hair. Tony almost groaned at the loss—somehow that was even more painful than his headache.

“Good morning,” said Tony attempting a lazy grin.

Steve just stared at him, his face dropping into a frown. “Did…we had sex, right?”

Tony sat up. That was the absolute worst idea. He pushed through the pain. “We certainly did.”

Steve nodded shakily. He turned away and started rummaging around on the floor for his clothes.

Oh. Tony’s stomach twisted into knots. He should say something. They could get coffee? Tony was about to die without coffee and he was perfectly capable of sharing. Sometimes. He’d share his coffee with Steve.

He opened his mouth to suggest it when his phone started screaming out Pepper’s ringtone. Why was the world so cruel?!

Tony nearly fell out of bed trying to grab the phone from his jeans pocket. He probably should have just gotten out of bed and grabbed them off the floor to make it easier for himself. But he was running on a wicked hangover and no coffee. Fuck everything.

“What?” answered Tony.

Steve was pulling on clothes. No, no, no. That needed to stop immediately.

“ _Where the hell are you?_ ” screeched Pepper, who had clearly turned into a banshee overnight.

“I’m in my room?” whispered Tony, hoping she would catch on. He was watching Steve who wasn’t looking at him and was still putting clothes on. Why was he doing that? Was he going to get coffee? Why was Pepper talking to him right now?

“ _You don’t sound very sure._ ”

“I am sure. I’m just…” Steve took his phone out and was looking at the screen. He was also frowning. What the hell? “Can I call you back?”

“ _Are you in trouble? Are you hurt? I can be there in—_ ”

“NO!” yelled Tony and he immediately regretted it. “Don’t come over. I’m good. I’ll call you later. Goodbye.” Tony hung up before she could answer and dropped his phone somewhere behind him.

Steve still wouldn’t look at him. Apparently, everything in Tony’s room was fascinating, except for Tony. Yeah…Tony really just wants to shrivel up and die—and he may in fact be doing so, because that’s what his body felt like it was doing. He still had no coffee and now Steve Rogers was wearing clothes and was not in his bed. Not to mention, Steve looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and die which is really not the mood Tony wants people in after sex. Was he bad? No one had ever mentioned he was bad. Was he just a sloppy drunk?

There is too much thinking going on, and far too little caffeine!

Steve was on his phone again. What was he doing? Was he going to ask Tony for his number? That might be too many numbers right now. There was definitely a 4, and maybe a 7? Was it a 4 and then a 7? Or was it a 4 and a 9?

They should just have this conversation after coffee. They could have breakfast. That would be fine.

“Hey, do you—”

“I’ve gotta go,” said Steve in a rush of breath. He glanced vaguely in Tony’s direction before his hand was on the doorknob. “Uh…thanks.”

And then he was gone.

Tony stared after him. “…want to get breakfast?” he finished weakly.

The coffeemaker was taunting him. But he had already lost all motivation to get out of bed, and instead, buried his face under his pillows. Fuck this shit.

 

 

 

 

Across the hall, Steve barely managed to unlock the door because his hands were shaking so badly. His head was throbbing and his mouth felt like it had spent the night stuffed with cotton balls. He dumped his costume on the floor and changed into a pair of Bucky’s sweatpants. He grabbed his water bottle off his desk and crawled under Bucky’s covers. He had no intention to move. Ever.

The door opened about an hour later, and Steve tried to pretend he was asleep. He had done so well, that apparently he had succeeded in pretending he wasn’t there at all.

“What the fuck?” grumbled Bucky, moving so he wasn’t lying with his elbow directly in Steve’s stomach. “Oh, Steve. What are you doing in my bed?”

“You’re very heavy,” mumbled Steve.

Bucky lifted up one side of the comforter and Steve moved closer to the wall. Bucky’s face was still streaked with the blue and pink makeup from his costume, but he was grinning.

“I knew you were here. Tasha was worried, but I figured you had just bailed. I know that drunk people make you uncomfortable—”

“I slept with Tony,” said Steve quickly. He then buried his face under a pillow to avoid seeing Bucky’s expression.

“In my bed?!” screeched Bucky. “Please tell me you were not in my bed!”

“No, we were in his room,” replied Steve miserably.

“I’m so proud of you!” said Bucky, worming under the covers with him. “Wait a minute, why are you here in my bed? And not in his bed?”

“I left.”

“STEVE!”

Steve clapped his hands over his ears. That was unnecessarily loud.

“Sorry. Why did you leave? Did he kick you out or something?”

Steve just shrugged. Okay, no, Tony didn’t ask him to leave. He probably did this kind of thing all the time and just expected people to leave in the morning. That’s probably why he was giving Steve that confused look when he woke up and found him there. Steve should have just left last night after Tony fell asleep in the first place, but…was it so bad if Steve just spent one night?

“Aw, Stevie,” said Bucky, and he let Steve cuddle up to him.

If he was letting Steve cuddle, then he clearly realized how much of a pathetic loser Steve was. This was the worst day. Steve was never leaving this bed ever again.

“Do you want me to put on that stupid movie that always makes you cry? I bet I can get Sam to bring us hot chocolate after his shift.”

“Titanic isn’t stupid.”

“You jump, I jump.”

“Tell Sam I need extra whipped cream,” muttered Steve.

“And a box of Kleenex. I’m on it.”

 

Because Bucky was not nearly as sympathetic as he should have been, he shoved Steve out the door and made him go take a shower. Steve ran down the hallway, convinced he was going to awkwardly run into Tony and have absolutely nothing to say to him. It was the worst.

Bucky tucked Steve into his bed and started Titanic, before he took his own shower and ventured into the world to get breakfast for them. He tried to make Steve go, but there was no way that Steve was ready for even a remote possibility of seeing Tony Stark. He’d probably just laugh in his face, or forget Steve altogether. Steve honestly wasn’t sure which was worse.

 

“Here are the most disgusting breakfast sandwiches ever,” said Bucky, walking in with a greasy white bag. “I'm super pumped to eat this.”

Steve was buried under both his and Bucky’s comforter, which he had stolen about five seconds after Bucky had left. He still had a headache, and his chest felt like someone had scooped out his insides with a sharp silver spoon. The blanket mountain was helping a little.

“Eat this,” said Bucky holding out the bag. “You’ll feel better.”

“I doubt it,” replied Steve. He struggled for several long moments to free his hands to even take the bag. Bucky took very deep breaths and somehow resisted rolling his eyes. Steve was grateful.

“How are Jack and Rose doing?” asked Bucky. He kicked off his shoes and crawled through the mess of blankets until he could sit on Steve’s bed.

“Still happy with each other.”

“Is Cal still being a jerk?”

“He never stops being a jerk.”

“Touché.”

 

Sam came by just as the Titanic hit the iceberg holding large cups of hot chocolate. Steve’s headache was gone, and the alarmingly greasy breakfast sandwiches made him feel like a human again. Although, Bucky never cuddled with him, so he continued to pretend he was still a mess from his hangover to keep the cuddling alive. Bucky wasn’t even watching the movie anymore. He had headphones in and was reading one of his textbooks.

“How was the party?” asked Sam, sitting on Bucky’s bed.

Bucky turned to Steve with a roguish grin. “How _was_ the party, Stevie?”

Steve retreated back under the blankets with his hot chocolate. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“What happened?” asked Sam.

“Oh, Steve just hooked up with Tony Stark.”

“Bucky!”

“Well, you did!”

“So… how was it?” asked Sam.

“He kicked Steve to the curb this morning.”

“That sucks, man,” said Sam. Steve buried himself further under the covers until no one could see his face anymore.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

And Tony didn’t really kick him to the curb. He didn’t say anything awful at all. Steve really didn’t give him a chance to, either. But he didn’t want to hear Tony say anything about what had happened. He should have just left last night instead of waiting until the morning. Then, it would have been made clear that it was only a one night stand and it didn’t mean anything. They had fun. Whatever.

“I could set you up with one of the guys in my psych class,” said Sam. “He’s cool. I think you’d like him.”

“You should go out more,” said Bucky, the traitor. “Have fun. Stop thinking about Tony Stark.”

“I don’t want to date anyone.”

“Why? Because you’re too shy, or too scared?”

“Too busy.”

“Bullshit,” said Sam. “But since you’re being a sad pile of blankets, I’ll drop it for now. Just let me know and I’ll set you up. I heard Natasha has a whole list of people for you.”

“I helped make that list,” replied Bucky, sounding far too smug for Steve’s liking.

“This hot chocolate was not worth this conversation,” mumbled Steve. Not that he regretted it. Hot chocolate was probably the most amazing thing anyone could ever give him. That and Bucky’s lasagna.

“You had your first one night stand, so now it’s time to put yourself out there,” said Bucky. He tried to pull the blankets away so Steve couldn’t hide anymore, but did not succeed. Steve was a master of crafting blanket forts.

“That wasn’t my first one.”

Bucky pulled the blankets so hard that Steve almost lost his hot chocolate. He sacrificed his hideout to save it.

“Explain,” demanded Bucky.

Steve shrugged. His face was turning red, he could feel it. Why couldn’t he just be cool about this? “It was nothing.”

“I will be the judge of that!”

“Bucky, this isn’t a cop movie from the 80s. Put your lamp down!” said Sam, swatting the back of Bucky’s head. Bucky did put his lamp back on his desk so it wasn’t shining in Steve’s eye. He had to blink a couple of times before his vision went back to normal.

“It was just some guy freshman year. It wasn’t a big deal.”

And it wasn’t. Although, it really wasn’t a one night stand. It was more like multiple nights for almost four months before he had gotten bored and stopped texting Steve. Yeah, it was fun or a while, but then Steve just felt like he was being used—not that it stopped him from answering those texts.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!”

“Bucky, try to remember you’re not starring in a soap opera,” said Sam.

“Then tell Steve to stop hurting me like this!”

Sam dropped his face into his hands. “Why did I have to be here for this?”

“Steven Grant Rogers! I thought we were best friends.”

Steve’s face was burning and he didn’t have any blankets left to hide under. “I told you about…when I lost my…you know…and you told me not to tell you things like that anymore.”

That was technically not true, but it was the best thing Steve could come up with. Bucky had not enjoyed that conversation, and couldn’t look Steve in the eye for a full week afterward.

“I meant that I didn’t need details. But the general facts would have been nice.”

“Virginity,” said Sam. “Why can’t you just say that? It’s not a swear word.”

“Steve is delicate,” said Bucky.

 Steve turned back to Titanic and turned up the volume as loud as he could.

“Fine, fine, message received,” said Sam, getting up. “I’ll see you guys later.”

“Thanks for the hot chocolate,” said Steve, keeping his eyes on the screen.

Bucky gave the blankets back and Steve buried himself under them.

“This conversation will be continued when you’re least expecting it,” said Bucky, opening his textbook again.

“I can’t wait.”


	5. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which going to library might actually kill Tony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I'm the worst and gave up trying to write! But now I'm back!
> 
> So this is for zianourryfanficgirl and my_emo_shipper_soul who made me feel guilty with their kind comments asking whether I would continue. Thanks for kicking me into gear, I sincerely appreciate it.

After spending almost an entire year and a half only seeing Steve on very rare and beautiful occasions, Tony was overwhelmed by how many times Steve had appeared in the two weeks since they had slept together. He had actively looked for Steve for an entire year, and now every time he turned around Steve was there. Tony was trying to avoid him! But no—Steve Rogers was everywhere! Tony ran into him in the goddamn dorms between almost every class—which was bound to happen—but it didn’t end there. He saw him at the Starbucks down the street, in the lame café on the second floor of the student union, at the grocery store (all three of them in this fucking city), and outside of almost every single academic building.

But the worst—the absolute worst—was running into him outside of the chemistry labs. Not just seeing him, no, that wouldn’t be awkward. (It was, just not too awkward that he couldn’t pretend he was totally fine with it.) But Steve was talking to Bruce. They were smiling, and Bruce laughed! Tony had never gotten him to laugh. Maybe a sarcastic chuckle or two, but not a genuine laugh like that.

Bruce was Tony’s friend! He was not Steve’s friend. Next, Rhodey and Pepper were going to stand around laughing with Steve. And then Tony would have to leave the country and become a hermit. Probably in the woods. He could have squirrels as pets. That sounded fucking awful.

“I’ll see you next week,” said Steve as he turned away. Tony jumped behind a pillar. He was not sure if he was quick enough.

“See you then,” replied Bruce.

As soon as Steve had rounded the corner out of sight, Tony raced up to Bruce.

“What the fuck?”

Bruce jumped, spilling his tea all over the floor. Serves him right—who the fuck drinks tea?

“Tony,” he said, glancing down at his tea. He sighed.

“Why were you talking to Steve Rogers and why the fuck are you seeing him next week?”

“You know, some people greet others before screaming profanities at them.” Bruce turned into the small student office for the chemistry majors and put what was left of his tea down on the desk. Tony stomped in after him. His blatant disregard for the urgency of the situation was appalling. Bruce betrayed their entire weird friendship and he didn’t even care!

“WHY WERE YOU TALKING TO—”

“Tony, sit down.” Bruce wasn’t even looking at him. He was pulling out paper towels and wiping up his stupid tea from the ground like that was somehow more important than this conversation.

“I will not.” Tony’s hands clenched into fists as if that could keep him from sitting down.

“Tony.” Bruce sat down behind the desk and sipped his tea out of a stupid flower mug. Tony groaned and sat down on the other side of the desk. He put his feet up on the desk and crossed his arms. Bruce wasn’t winning this. Just because he had gotten Tony to sit did not mean he had any advantage.

“Well?” prompted Tony.

“Not that it’s any of your business,” said Bruce. He took another sip of tea. “But this is when I have office hours every week. Steve is in one of the chem. labs that I’m the T.A. for.”

“I didn’t know you were a T.A.” No one had ever asked Tony to be a T.A. Not that he would do it, but it would be nice to be asked. He’s smarter than most of the professors here anyway.

“Why does it matter if I know Steve Rogers?” asked Bruce.

“Because it’s not allowed,” said Tony directing his glare at the flowery mug. For Christmas, Tony was going to buy Bruce a thousand mugs that were way cooler than that one. It was embarrassing to be seen with him holding that stupid mug.

Bruce sighed. For probably the ninth time already. Is Tony really that irritating? No, definitely not. 

“I’m going to regret asking this, but why?”

“Because you’re _my_ friend.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Am I?”

“Aren’t you?” replied Tony slowly. 

They blinked at each other for several long moments. 

“So…what have you been working on?” asked Tony.

Bruce sat up straighter and put his mug down. Victory. “Well, actually it’s very interesting.”

Yes, back to normal, thought Tony grinning.

 

After several hours and the death of three dry erase markers, Tony wandered off to his engineering lab. Technically it wasn’t his, but he had claimed it and no one could stop him. Especially not after he’d installed a passcode on the door. (Take that, Hammer. Finders keepers.) He petted his monitors and pulled his latest project off one of the shelves. 

“Alright everyone, look alive.”

U squeaked and circled the floor around Tony’s feet. Tony nudged the overexcited robot out of his way and started pulling out his tools. Ah yes, this was exactly where he wanted to be. No Steve Rogers here.

 

 

 

 

 

After another disastrous attempt to learn chemistry, Steve retreated to an empty art classroom to pull out his watercolor project. He wanted to set it on fire, but even that wouldn’t help at this point. He could not figure out why none of the colors were turning out. He was doing everything right. None of his lines were where they should be, and the perspective he’d been trying to achieve just looked ridiculous. Bucky wouldn’t even have anything good to say about it—and he was morally obligated to tell Steve his work was amazing. (Okay, Bucky probably would still say it was great. He’s good at stringing words together that sound good but are really just a lot of bull.)

Steve banged his head on the desk. Was it really his fault that Tony Stark kept appearing everywhere? It was bad enough that they lived just down the hallway from each other, but Steve really didn’t need to keep seeing him all over campus too. It was especially embarrassing for Tony to see him walking out of Bruce’s office hours. Tony probably thinks that Steve is just a sad idiot that doesn’t understand chemistry. Tony on the other hand, walks around campus like he owns it with his trademark smirk that gossip magazines preen over. (Steve may have a stolen Bucky’s copy of the _Wired Magazine_ issue with Tony on the cover. He was pretty sure Bucky knew, but they did not speak of it.)

Steve’s phone ringing startled him back into reality.

“Hello?”

“ _Steve!_ ” said Peggy. “ _How are you?_ ”

Steve rubbed his forehead. “Fine. How’s Yale?”

“ _Still getting used to me, but I’m sure they’ll catch on eventually. A little bird told me about you and a certain bratty rich boy. I can’t believe you haven’t called me._ ” 

Steve went red, and he was incredibly glad that she couldn’t see him. “Remind me to tell Bucky that he’s a traitor.” 

She laughed. “ _Don’t be embarrassed, Steve. You’re in college! You’re allowed to have fun_.” 

“I’m not embarrassed,” he said, rubbing his cheeks as though that would stop his face from betraying him. He should have just kept banging his head on the desk. It achieved just about the same effect as this conversation. 

Peggy laughed. “ _Oh Steve. Was it awful? Is that why you didn’t tell me?_ ” 

“No,” muttered Steve, slouching down in his chair. “It was great. Maybe amazing? I don’t know.”

“ _Then what’s the problem? Did he say something to make you feel like this? Because I will come over there and—_ ” 

“No! No, he didn’t.” Steve sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I’m just a one night stand. It didn’t mean anything.” 

“ _Well, it obviously meant something to you._ ” 

Did it? Did he really fall for Tony? It was pointless because nothing else will ever happen. The only reason he was being so hypersensitive was because he knew nothing would ever happen. It just doesn’t stop him from hoping. 

“I only watched Titanic once!” protested Steve.

“ _That’s not what I heard._ ” 

Steve dropped his head back onto the desk. “Bucky is a traitor.” 

“ _I’m sorry, love. I know you really liked that boy._ ” 

“It doesn’t matter. It’s not like I really stood a chance.” 

“ _Well, he’s just an idiot then, isn’t he?_ ” 

Everyone was clambering to be with Tony. Steve wasn’t special enough to stand out. Maybe Steve was the real idiot for still holding onto the hope that Tony would still choose him. 

“I saw Sharon,” said Steve in the long pause. He wanted to pretend nothing had ever happened between Tony and him. That’d be for the better. At least that took the edge off the sting of rejection.

“ _Did you? Isn’t she dating someone new? I think they met over the summer, but I can never keep track._ ” 

Steve and Peggy talked a little more about Sharon’s whirlwind relationships until Peggy had to run off to a lecture. That left Steve plenty of time to glare at his painting before he finally gave up and took out his sketchbook. He could afford to wait one more day. He needed to start developing a showcase piece for his drawing class, anyway.

Although after spending a full hour drawing the same pair of calloused hands and a mop of dark, messy hair, he realized he may not be coping very well.

 

“Art things?” asked Bucky, not even looking up from his laptop as Steve walked into their room. He was typing frantically—which was really the only way Bucky ever typed. His battered keyboard could attest to that.

“Art of Interpretation?” asked Steve. He dropped his bag next to his desk. 

“Post-Colonial Lit,” replied Bucky. “Did you make me a masterpiece?” 

“Not even close.” Steve pulled out his laptop and stared at it. Okay, he still hadn’t thanked Tony for whatever magic he had performed that saved his ancient laptop. The guilt was eating Steve alive. It’s not like he could just walk up to Tony and thank him now—not after everything that happened. He put the laptop back in the drawer. 

“This is the third time you’ve done that today,” said Bucky. 

“Done what?” Steve asked, confused. 

“You have a laptop. A functional laptop. Just use it.” Bucky spun around in his chair. “Because you’re not using mine anymore. You’re officially banned. I even changed the password.” 

“You didn’t change the password,” said Steve. Bucky kept the same password on everything so he’d never have to remember more than one. He could recite entire pages of literature, but couldn’t remember more than one password. Not that Steve’s password was particularly sophisticated, but he was never afraid of anyone stealing his laptop. 

“I did!” 

“Is it bucky1?” asked Steve.

Bucky grinned. “No. You’ll never guess.” 

“Is it bucky123?” Bucky shook his head. “123bucky?” Bucky shook his head again. 

Steve frowned. It only fueled Bucky’s smug expression. “You’ll never guess. I’m the greatest mastermind ever known.” 

“I have reading to do anyways,” said Steve. He sat on his desk and did not miss Bucky’s eye roll. 

“You’re the most ridiculous person.”

“Speak for yourself,” muttered Steve, and he opened one of his textbooks at random just to look busy.

Bucky rolled in his chair until he backed into Steve’s desk—Steve had to hug his knees to his chest to avoid getting hit. Bucky leaned back until his head was resting on Steve’s desk. “You know you don’t have to feel bad. He was the jerk.” 

Steve turned completely away and faced the wall. Was Tony really the jerk? Maybe? His face was turning red, he could feel it. “Don’t you have an essay to finish?”

Bucky sighed and Steve knew that essay had just been prioritized higher than this conversation. Schoolwork was one thing Bucky wouldn’t put off unless he absolutely had to. “Fine. To be continued.”

Steve pushed him away and he spun, rolling into the door. “You say the stupidest things.” 

Bucky kicked off using the door and knocked over three separate piles of books. “The only things that come out of my mouth are clever and witty. You’re just jealous.” 

“Keep telling yourself that.”

 

 

 

 

“Tony, you have been in here for two whole days,” said Pepper.

Where the fuck did she come from? Tony looked up and a sharp pain pierced through his neck and back. How long had he been bent over like that? He rubbed the back of his neck staring wide-eyed at Pepper. 

“Why are you here?”

She flicked her long red ponytail over her shoulder and put her hands on her hips. He was not getting out of this one. “You’re scaring people and you smell like a sweaty taco.” 

“Why do you know what a sweaty taco smells like? When have you experienced a taco sweating?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Tony, you need to shower and eat something.” 

“I have coffee,” he replied, pointing at the sacred coffee pot. The tip of his finger was covered in ink… Interesting. When did that happen? 

“You can’t live on coffee,” said Pepper, taking a step away from him. Okay, rude, he wasn’t that disgusting. 

“Watch me,” he replied, turning back to the monitor. 

“That was not a challenge!” 

“I’m busy. Go away,” he muttered, already focusing back on the numbers he was running. Was that really the energy output? It seemed kind of low. How should he boost that? He scanned through his data again.

“I will take you to that god-awful taco place if you go and shower right now.” 

Tony turned away from the monitor very slowly. Like a villain. If only he had a white fluffy cat. No, that was too cliché. He didn’t even like cats that much. What was happening in his brain right now? Pepper had disrupted the precious balance. How dare she! 

“Jack’s Taco Hat?” he asked. He pressed the tips of his fingers together. Then he dropped his hands into his lap because that looked stupid. Also, one of his fingers was kind of sticky and he didn’t know why. He didn’t really want to know, either.

“Yes,” said Pepper, forcing the words through gritted teeth.

Bribery. He loved it.

He eyed her carefully. “You’re not allowed to judge my nachos.” 

“I can and I will.”

 

And she did. There was so much judgment, but Tony didn’t really care. He had four servings of guacamole all to himself. This should have been where he lived happily ever in his lab. Instead he received the most terrifying email he had ever received in his life—he may have even screamed at the horror of it all.

“Tony, you’re overreacting,” sighed Pepper. 

Tony whirled around to look at her. “Am I?” He threw his phone across the room and it hit the wall with a satisfying thump. Of course it didn’t break—he designed it well enough to withstand something as trivial as hitting a wall. Suck on that, Apple. 

“Your professor is sending you to the library to research, not to prison.”

“I don’t need to go to the library! I have the internet! Information comes to me. I do not need to walk all the fuck way across campus for something I can do in the convenience of my own space.” 

“You could use some long walks across campus,” said Pepper. “Get fresh air once in a while instead of basking in your own stench.” 

Tony flopped backwards onto his bed. What the actual hell? Of course Doctor Strange had to explicitly tell him to bring the books he found to class. That asshole! There are such a thing as ebooks, which are available on the internet! He doesn’t need to go to the library for outdated information from dusty books. He has all sorts of online resources—he doesn’t need to go to the fucking library!

“It’s not going to kill you.” 

“It might!”

 

That is how Tony found himself in the fucking library 45 minutes later, wandering around like an idiot. The Dewey Decimal business was clearly a broken system and made absolutely no sense. Why couldn’t he just use the internet? This was clearly a cruel and unusual punishment, and was definitely violating Tony’s civil rights. 

“Hey Stark.” 

Tony tripped over nothing and fell flat on his face. What the fuck? No one knew him at the library. This was the first time he had ever stepped foot in this building, so this was not somewhere he should be recognized.

He carefully picked up his fragile dignity and looked at the culprit that had startled him. 

Bucky leaned casually against a cart full of books with a smirk plastered across his face. No, Tony did not need to have this encounter. He hadn’t even thought about Steve today! (That was a lie, he thought about Steve constantly and it was really starting to get ridiculous.) 

“Do you need help with anything?” asked Bucky. 

“Why are you here?” asked Tony, now picking himself off the ground. He was trying to achieve an air of having fallen flat on his face on purpose. Bucky’s smirk only widened.

“I work here, asshole.” 

“Well, I don’t need your help, so you can fuck off.” 

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Suit yourself.” 

Tony brushed himself off, going back to his muttered rant about how stupid this entire situation was. Stupid fucking library with its fucking absurd system of organization. 

“Hey Stark,” called Bucky. Tony glared at him. “Engineering is back that way, just past Medicine.” Bucky pointed in the opposite direction that Tony was walking.

Tony spun on his heel and stormed off in the direction Bucky had pointed. Bucky still had a smirk on his face and Tony hated him. He hated him even more when he found the section he was looking for right where Bucky said it would be. That smug bastard. Tony started yanking down books grumbling the entire time. What a waste of time.

 

“Wake up,” said a very rude person that had no business waking Tony up. He was asleep. He would sleep if he wanted—which was actually not what he ever wanted to do, so he blinked until his eyes adjusted to the world.

“Da fuck?” he said, clearly as a very eloquent person, like himself, would. 

“Finally! I thought I’d have to call security to get rid of you.” 

Tony looked up at the person that kept speaking and, great—it was Bucky standing there with his stupid blond hair and a smug grin. “Why are you still here? Haven’t I been tortured enough?” He groaned and dropped his head back onto the table.

“The library is closed—has been for an hour now.” 

“You can’t close the library,” muttered Tony. Although, as this was his first time in the library, he may not have known as much about it as he’d like to think.

“It closes every night at 11. Except on Friday, it closes at 6, which is pretty stupid, because Friday night shifts would work a lot better with my schedule.”

“You’re still talking, and I hate you,” said Tony, shoving his tablet back into his bag. The books that had been previously scattered around the table were in a neat stack next to his elbow. 

“I took the liberty of checking these out for you. Mostly because I didn’t want to spend the extra time putting them away tonight,” said Bucky. He had his coat on and shifted his weight back and forth between his feet. 

“Are you saying that I have to carry all of these now?” said Tony, eyeing the stack. There were like eight books that were all hardcover and huge. He was definitely going to get another backpack. With wheels. Rhodey could judge him all he wanted. 

“Yes,” said Bucky, sighing. He sighed exactly like Bruce. That was unnecessary. 

“Why are you even here?” asked Tony. He fit three of the books into his bag before having to shake it hard enough that things settled so he could add another one.

“Again, I work here. And I have to lock the door so idiots like you don’t think the library is always open.”

“Why don’t you just leave me here? Lock me in, and then I can just keep on working.” 

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Because you’ll set off the motion alarms and security will call me at 2am to fill out all sorts of incident reports about why I couldn’t do my job correctly. Not to mention, Steve is on duty tonight, so I’ll get a whole other lecture about responsibility, and the importance of following rules, and all sorts of other bullshit. Then, I’ll probably get fired, which means that I’ll have to get a job off campus or take out more student loans. And letting you stay here is not worth suffering through any of those things, so get the fuck out of the library.” 

Tony barely managed to zip his backpack up around the books. There were still three more on the table. So cruel. He’d have to carry them. Why couldn’t they just have ebooks? So much less to carry. This is why he should have just been able to use the fucking internet. 

“Stark, seriously. My dead grandmother moves faster than you.” 

“That sounds terrifying,” muttered Tony, hoisting his backpack over his shoulders (holy fuck that’s heavy) and gathering the books into his arms. He staggered over to one side and Bucky took the books out of his hands muttering in whatever language he mutters in all the time. Tony should consider learning another language to mutter in. That would be fun. 

“Are you carrying my books for me?” asked Tony. “I didn’t know our relationship was at this point.”

Bucky didn’t blush and stammer like the last time that Tony talked about their relationship. It was disappointing. 

“Move,” said Bucky, shoving the books back into Tony’s chest as they had walked out the front door. Tony stumbled until his shoulder collided with the wall. Fuck!

Bucky locked the door and turned around to face Tony. “Sorry.” He reached out for the books in Tony’s hand, but fuck that asshole, so Tony spun around (which was not nearly as easy as it should have been) and stormed back to his dorm. Tony pretended he was not embarrassed about how heavily he was breathing. Those books were heavy! Bucky walked just behind him like a stalker. 

“Why are you following me?” asked Tony. He didn’t turn around—mostly because it could have made him fall over and die. He didn’t need that today.

“We live in the same fucking building, asshole.”

Oh. Yeah, they did. Tony turned and shoved the books into Bucky’s chest. He didn’t even stagger, just took them and kept walking. What the hell? Was Tony literally the only person that was out of shape around here?

“Well thanks for carrying these, then,” replied Tony. 

Now they had a solid five minutes of awkward small talk before they reached the dorm. Maybe he should have Pepper prepare note cards or something. Or he should go back to wearing headphones at all times so he could ignore people in peace.

“The weather’s been...” Tony trailed off. Fuck if he knows what the weather has been like. Cold? He doesn’t care about the weather! Why was he even trying to make conversation right now? 

Bucky said something and waved one hand vaguely at Tony’s crotch. Tony looked down to make sure everything was in order down there, because that was a weird ass place to gesture...

Then Bucky’s words actually sunk in. _Did he actually kick Steve out the morning after?_ Tony guessed that the vague hand waving was Bucky’s way of avoiding labeling what had happened. Was “one night stand” not good enough or something? 

“No,” said Tony. He regretted it as soon as Bucky put his hand on Tony’s shoulder. To console him? What the fuck for? 

“I’m gonna kick his stupid punk ass,” said Bucky, sighing like kicking Steve’s ass was some kind of chore. 

“Why?” asked Tony slowly.

Bucky turned to look at him. Why was his face like that? Tony was not a sad puppy—he didn’t need the pitying expression. He shifted his books to his metal arm. Tony still seriously wanted to play with that. The technology had to be fantastic. Or would be fantastic if Tony ever got to really work on it. It wouldn’t take that long to get a good understanding of prosthetics.

“Don’t you like him?” 

“Like who?” What the fuck was he talking about now? Tony was trying to think about his awesome metal arm.

“Steve.”

Tony stopped in his tracks. “Are you trying to talk to me about feelings?”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “I guess...” he said slowly.

“I only do that with Pepper.” Tony gave him a scathing look and walked as fast as he could. Bucky caught up with him almost immediately.

“Okay, fine. I know you like Steve. So what are you going to do about it?”

“Not fucking talk to you about it, that’s what,” said Tony.

“You two are the biggest fucking idiots,” muttered Bucky. 

Tony veered off into the grass. “Stop fucking walking so close to me.”

“Where are you going?”

Nope. Tony was done talking to this asshole. Just because they held hands out of fear of death, now they talk about feelings and shit? Fuck no. He didn’t know shit about Tony. And Tony did not need someone else spouting out shit about his life. Pepper could say all the shit she wanted, but only because she knew what the fuck she was talking about. Everyone else could just—

Where the fuck did the ground go? Son of a bitch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Campus Safety,” answered Steve, picking up the line. It had actually been really quiet so far and Steve was deep into his chemistry homework. Not that it was going well, but it was going. 

“ _Hey Stevie_.”

Steve sighed. “Buck, I told you not to call me at the office line.”

“ _Yeah, well this is an emergency, Officer Rogers_.”

“Never call me that again.”

“ _Captain Rogers?_ ”

“Buck.”

“ _I need assistance. A dude fell and I’m pretty sure he broke a limb._ ”

“I’m not an ambulance, call 911,” said Steve, slamming his textbook shut. 

“ _I'm not fucking going to the hospital. I have class at 8 tomorrow. This is your actual job._ ”

 ”Language. Fine. Where are you?”

“ _Love you._ ”

This was going to be such an annoying report to write. If he calls the ambulance, he'd have to go with them, and fill out like a thousand reports. Plus he'd also have to leave Wanda in charge and she was a nervous wreck whenever the phone rang. The other option was to take whoever it was in one of the security SUVs, and still wait there for the whole night. At least he'd have a way to get back to campus.

 

Steve packed up all of his books and left Wanda in charge of the phones after reassuring her that she’d be fine. He did not want to deal with this right now. It was probably Clint. Or maybe Sam, but probably Clint. 

As he pulled up to the curb next to Bucky in the Campus Safety SUV, he discovered that it was significantly worse. Bucky was sitting next to Tony Stark who was curled up in the fetal position on the concrete. 

Steve glared at Bucky because he couldn't say anything out loud.

Bucky smirked at him. “Your chariot awaits, Stark.”

Tony whimpered in response, curling even further into himself. 

“Help me lift him,” said Steve through gritted teeth. He narrowed his eyes at Bucky, and Bucky responded with a shrug. A warning would have been nice! He was not prepared for Tony Stark to be here right now.

“I'm pretty sure he broke his leg,” said Bucky in the same tone of someone observing the weather. “Although he's literally said nothing this entire time, so I don't know for sure.”

“Tony,” said Steve, crouching down. “Can you get up?”

Tony mumbled something incoherent. 

“Then Bucky and I are going to lift you. Is that okay?” He turned to Bucky. “Be careful.”

“I am careful,” said Bucky, reaching down to grab Tony's arm. 

It was a struggle and Tony was completely useless, but they managed to get him strapped into the back seat of the SUV. Tony had some scrapes on his face and hands, but Steve didn't see any other obvious signs of injury. Tony was definitely favoring his right leg. 

“Have fun with that,” said Bucky. “Oh, and these books are his too, but I'll just bring them back to our room until he's functional again.” Bucky picked a stack of books off the ground and waved as Steve drove away.

 

Once they got to the hospital, Steve really had nothing to do but try to stay out of the way. The nurses took Tony's vitals and cleaned out the cuts he got from falling. They had to cut off the leg of Tony's jeans because his knee had swollen to twice its normal size. Eventually they found out that he fractured his kneecap, but wouldn't need surgery. 

“We're going to fit you with a temporary cast for now,” said the doctor. Steve couldn't remember her name, even though she had said it four times already. “You'll have to come back in when the swelling has gone down and then we'll fit you with a more permanent one. “

Tony nodded. He still hadn't spoken in the entire time he'd been here, which was nearing two hours. 

The doctor smiled. “I'll have the nurse come back in and take care of that, and I’ll get a prescription for some pain medication ready to go. Then you'll be able to go back.” She looked up at Steve. “Is there someone that will be able to keep an eye on him for the next 24 hours? Just to help him out.”

Steve swallowed hard. “Yeah.” He didn't know why he said that. He didn't know. 

“Alright. The nurse should be in in a few minutes,” she said. She closed the door behind her. 

“Is there someone you want me to call? Your parents?”

Tony stared down at his knee. “No.”

“Or Virginia Potts?”

“Her name is Pepper,” he said his voice low and deadly. “And no.”

“Right. Sorry.”

Steve stared down at his feet. This was the first time they had been alone since...Halloween. Now was a good a time as any.

“Thank you,” blurted Steve. 

“For what?” Tony was now glaring at his knee. He hadn’t looked at Steve once in the two hours they’d been here.

“For...fixing my laptop. I...never said thank—”

“Whatever,” said Tony. He looked up and crossed his arms. 

“Does it hurt?” asked Steve. His face was burning. Like being humiliated wasn't enough, now his face had to broadcast it to everyone. 

“Yeah,” said Tony, his voice finally showing some sign of exhaustion.

“I broke my wrist when I was eight,” said Steve. He really needed to stop talking. Why was he still talking? There were words coming out of his mouth about that stupid fight he got into in third grade that he lost spectacularly and also broke his wrist punching the brick wall. Tony did not need to know this story, but his mouth was still telling it. Why?

“You really don't look like someone that loses a lot of fights,” said Tony. 

“I used to be really small,” said Steve. “Like really tiny and pathetic. I got sick all the time.”

Tony stared back down at his knee until the nurse came in to put on his cast. She kept talking even though Tony was blatantly ignoring her. 

Steve settled back into his corner feeling like an idiot. But, what else was new?

 

They had to wait a little longer to get Tony's prescription and a set of crutches for him to get around on. They wheeled him out in a wheelchair while Steve brought the car around to the front. Tony didn't open his mouth once. He either nodded or stared at his knee. 

By the time Steve got Tony back to his room, it was already 3am so technically his shift was over. Wanda hadn't called him all night, so there must not have been any problems. Tony was moving incredibly slow and couldn't seem to keep his head up. 

“Tony, do you want me to call someone to look after you?” Steve asked again after the third time he caught Tony before he unbalanced on the crutches.

“No,” said Tony. He was slurring and blinking very slowly. 

The pain meds were probably kicking in. “Are you sure?”

Tony nodded once, and promptly dropped sideways into the wall. Steve replaced the crutch on Tony's left side with himself in order to get Tony back to vertical. Tony's head dropped against Steve's chest. 

Okay, so he could probably get Tony back to his room because they were only one door away, but as he didn't think Tony had cleaned since the last time he'd seen his room, so maneuvering around that was bound to injure Tony even more. 

Bucky was going to be so mad at him. 

Steve set Tony down on the ground and propped him up against the wall. “I'll be right back,” he promised. Tony's eyes slid shut and he groaned. 

“Bucky, wake up, I need your help.”

Bucky rolled over and banged his head against the wall. “Wha time izit?”

“I just need you for five minutes, then you can go back to sleep.”

“Hate you.” Bucky slid out of bed like a slug, laying on the floor for a moment before finally getting to his feet. “This better be important.”

 

When Bucky saw Tony sitting in the hallway he punched Steve in the arm. “Absolutely not.”

“I can't leave him alone,” hissed Steve. “He's basically unconscious.”

“Call the hot redhead he hangs out with.”

“He doesn't want me to.”

Bucky groaned and walked over to Tony, muttering Russian insults under his breath. Or at least that's what Steve always assumed he was saying—the tone matched. They managed to drag Tony into their room and lifted him onto Steve's bed.

“Am I done?” asked Bucky. “You are going to seriously owe me after this.” Tony started snoring and Bucky shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

 

Steve got no sleep, because he woke up every hour or so to worry about Tony. He made Bucky stay up to watch Tony while he drove the SUV back to the lot by the Campus Safety office and locked up the keys. But Tony slept like the dead up until Bucky left for class at 7:45. Steve felt like a zombie had eaten his brain and put his jeans on backward twice before finally getting them on correctly.  He only had his watercolor class at 2 today, so normally he slept in a little bit and sat at the coffee shop down the street doing homework until he had to go to class. 

“I'm dreaming,” said Tony. His eyes were still closed. Steve stared at him, and put his shirt on as quietly as possible. He could probably leave the room without Tony noticing. But what if Tony decided to stand on his leg and injure himself even more? Or what if he fell and there wasn't anyone to help him?

“JARVIS, what time is it?” 

Steve did not know who Jarvis was. “Uh...eight?” he answered.

“Am or Pm?”

“Am?”

“Gross.” Tony shifted his leg and winced. “Fuck! I forgot about that.”

“I have your pain meds, if you need more,” said Steve. 

“Thanks, J.” Tony's eyes opened and he sat up (well as much as he could without disturbing his leg). “What the fuck?”

“Who did you think you were talking to?” asked Steve, shoving his hoodie over his head. 

Tony scratched at the back of his neck sheepishly. “My A.I. He... anyway.” Tony looked around the room. “So this isn't my room.”

“It's mine,” said Steve. Of course it was, idiot. He didn't need to say that. Why was he talking?

“I gathered that,” said Tony. He narrowed his eyes. “Are you kidnapping me?”

“No!” spluttered Steve. “I just didn't want to leave you alone.”

Tony shrugged. “I didn't know you owned jeans.”

Steve didn't have a response for that. He did own jeans. Why did that matter?

Tony lay back down and let out a sigh that could have put Atlas' suffering to shame. “I have to pee.”

“Right.” Steve reached out to help him get down, but Tony batted his hand away. 

“Fuck off.” Tony slid down from the bed and landed on his uninjured leg. He hopped over to where Steve had propped the crutches against the wall and stuffed them under his arms. 

“Sorry,” muttered Steve, his face burning. 

Tony shuffled awkwardly until he turned around to face Steve. “This ain't my first rodeo, cowboy. Also, stay here until I get back.”

Steve nodded dumbly. 

Tony paused. “Nice hoodie.” 

Tony was already out the door before Steve realized he was wearing his Captain America sweatshirt. The same one that Tony owned.

Almost fifteen minutes later, Steve was pacing from the door to the window. What if Tony had fallen? Or needed help? This was talking forever and his heart was racing much faster than it should have been. What if he had gone to the wrong room, or someone had stolen his crutches?

There was a knock on the door and Tony wobbled in wearing a different (Steve wasn't really sure if he could call it clean) t-shirt, and sweatpants instead of the scrubs the hospital had given him. His hair was still a disaster, so that was a relief. 

“That...other guy isn't here, is he?” asked Tony, peering at Bucky's bed. 

“Bucky is in class.”

Tony leaned forward and cocked his head to one side. “I need coffee.” 

“You're supposed to take your meds with food,” said Steve. Okay, now words were just coming out of his mouth. 

“Thanks, mom,” said Tony. “Let's go do that.”

“I returned the car last night.” Steve, stop talking. All he was doing was spouting off vaguely relevant facts.

“I distinctly remember you having a car,” said Tony. “And I don’t want to talk to everyone else that I know with a car.”

“You want to talk to me?”

Tony shrugged. “Only if you bring me to coffee. Right now. Get moving.”

Steve shoved his feet into his shoes and grabbed his keys. “Should I...go get the car?”

“Probably,” said Tony. He was frowning like Steve was the biggest idiot to grace the earth. And that was exactly true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Tony...


	6. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which, everything sucks and there is not as much coffee as there should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think there's only going to be one more chapter after this. We're almost to the end! Thank you everyone for your kind comments and kudos! Enjoy!

Steve was such a mother hen. Tony could walk himself down the hallway—this wasn’t his first time using crutches. Steve kept trying to make small talk as Tony wobbled out the door. Or at least Tony thought that’s what he was trying to do. Instead, he was really just blurting out various statements like they were questions. “ _It’s been really cold lately?_ ” “ _Your knee looks a little better?_ ” “ _I know a good café down the street?_ ” Was that just some kind of weird nice guy thing? Tony didn’t really have anything to respond with, so he just nodded and tried not to whine about his knee—which hurt a lot, by the way. Not to mention, there was a headache building behind his eyes, so he needed caffeine before he went on a murder rampage.

“ANTHONY STARK!” called a shrill voice.

Tony froze. Oh fuck, he was in so much trouble. She couldn’t have shown up later? Why was she here right now, just when he was about to spend time with Steve? Why was his life so fucking cruel? Typical.

Pepper marched down the hall, her hair coming out of her ponytail like a crazy person. “Why did I have to hear from James Barnes that you were in the hospital last night?”

“Not now.” Tony glanced up at Steve. No, this was not how today was supposed to go. He just wanted coffee!

Pepper put her hands on her hips. Fuck. That was not a good sign. “Don’t even start that with me, Anthony.”

Not the full name. That’s not necessary. Tony really wished he wasn’t on crutches so he could slide over and hide behind Steve. His knee hurt like a bitch and he wanted to go to bed—which meant he needed coffee. Right now. But Pepper was not backing down.

“First, you go missing on Halloween with some mystery person that you still haven’t told me about.”

“Pepper, shut up,” hissed Tony. No, please don’t bring that up. Not now, not in front of Steve.

“You haven’t told Rhodey who it was either, which makes me think that you’re hiding something. I’d like to know these things about your life so that I know who I have to go find when you’re in trouble—”

“It doesn’t matter—it didn’t mean anything!”

“—but now you’re on crutches and you didn’t even bother to tell me? How did you think I was going to react? Don’t you think I spend enough time worrying about you? Instead I look like an idiot when someone that you don’t even like, tells me that you were in the hospital!”

Tony hit his crutch against the ground out of frustration. “He was there when I fell, that’s why he—”

“Were you unconscious?” asked Pepper, her lips pursed together in that way that never meant anything good.

“…No.”

“Did your phone die?”

Tony dropped his gaze to the floor. “No.”

“Then why the hell didn’t you call me?”

Tony took a deep breath. “Because I’m fine. Can we talk about this later?” He chanced a glance at Steve. His face was very red and he was staring down at his hands like he was the one being yelled at. Fuck! This was not supposed to happen! Why did Steve have to be here to witness this?

“You’re not fine. You’re on crutches! What the hell were you even doing?” Pepper’s voice was steadily rising by the octave. Pretty soon she was going to shatter glass.

“Why do you assume I did something? Maybe I’m innocent!” Pepper fixed him with an icy glare. Fucking ridiculous. “I was at the fucking library and I fell! I told you this would happen and you didn’t fucking believe me!”

“I think we should finish this conversation in your room.” Pepper turned to Steve before she could see Tony roll his eyes. “Thank you so much for taking care of him.”

“No problem,” replied Steve. His voice was barely above a whisper.

“Get in your room,” she ordered and Tony begrudgingly hobbled after her, still a bit wobbly with the crutches. He broke his leg two years ago and swore he’d never have to use crutches again. Clearly, that didn’t work very well. Wasn’t it bad enough that he had a fucking broken knee? Why add on the torture of crutches?

 Steve was already gone before Tony turned around. Wasn’t that just fucking great?

Pepper rounded on him as soon as the door shut. “Who was it? Alexander Pierce?”

“No! I’m not that stupid,” said Tony. He sat down on his bed and tossed his crutches at his closet. His knee was throbbing. He just wanted to take his pain meds and pass out for the next six weeks until he could get rid of his crutches.

“That’s what you said last time,” said Pepper. She kicked aside a pile of cords. “But it didn’t stop you then.”

“That was an entire year ago. No, it wasn’t Alex.”

Pepper stood over him. He did not like it. “Was it that journalism major? Christine?”

“Who?” asked Tony. Did he know any journalism majors?

“Fine, then who was it?”

“It was Steve. There, now you know. Can I take my pain meds and go to fucking sleep?” Tony put his pillow over his face. Conversation ended.

Pepper tore it out of his grip and threw it across the room. “You hooked up with Steve Rogers?”

Her voice was strangely calm. Not like she was okay with it, but more like the calm that comes before tsunami destroys an entire country. Tony wanted his pillow back. He needed more pillows to hide behind.

Pepper turned and walked over to grab the pillow she had thrown. Maybe this was like a peace offering? That’d be nice.

She paused and then slammed the pillow down on his face.

“What the actual fuck is wrong with you?” yelled Pepper.

“I think you broke my nose.” Tony rubbed at it, trying to see if it was broken, or at least bleeding. What the fuck!

“Steve Rogers?” She hit him again with the pillow. “Natasha told me what happened to him on Halloween, but I had no idea it was you! I thought you were better than that.”

“Will you stop hitting me?” yelled Tony, putting his arms up to protect his face. Pepper hit him in the stomach. “Put the fucking pillow down! What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything. He was the one that ran out on me!”

Her eyes narrowed. “What did you say to him?”

“I didn’t say anything! He just said ‘thanks’ and ran out. And I was fucking trying to hang out with him today but you had to show up and yell at me.”

Pepper tilted her head frowning. She opened her mouth like she was going to say something, but sighed instead. “Well, you deserved to be yelled at because you’re a fucking idiot. Did you think I wouldn’t notice you were on crutches?”

Tony glowered at her. She had a point, but it was still rude.

“Rhodey is coming by with some breakfast.” Pepper sat down next to him and brushed his hair off his forehead. “How’s your knee?”

“Hurts like a bitch, actually.”

She moved and put Tony’s head in her lap so she could run soothing fingers through his hair. Tony let it happen. It did actually make him feel better. Sort of. Coffee would have really sealed the deal.

 

Tony’s pain meds knocked him out after Rhodey came over with breakfast burritos. When he woke up, it was dark outside and Rhodey was sitting next to him. He had his textbook in his lap and a pile of papers strewn across Tony’s chest.

“Do I look like a desk to you?” grumbled Tony. Coffee. He needed that.

“I’d use your desk except it’s full of shit.” Rhodey considered this. “You and your desk really do have a lot in common.”

Tony pouted. “I’m sad and injured. You’re not allowed to be mean, sugar pie.”

“Remind me what you were doing again when you got hurt,” said Rhodey.

“It’s not my fault someone built a drop off in the middle of a hill. There should be a warning sign or something. I should sue somebody,” grumbled Tony. “I have to pee.”

Rhodey laughed and stood up. “For Christmas I’m getting you one of those Life Alert things.”

Tony swatted at him and missed because Rhodey was too busy picking up his crutches. “I’m not old! My knee hurts. And my arms are going to die from those fucking crutches.”

“Get a wheelchair.” Rhodey paused. “Actually, no. I get the feeling you’d be even more irritating.”

“I should just build a metal suit,” said Tony, very reluctantly letting Rhodey help him stand. “One that flies so I don’t even have to bother with walking.”

“You could save cats in trees.”

Tony scowled at him. Rude. “Oh fuck off. I could be a badass superhero. And because you said that, you’re no longer getting one. You could have been my sidekick.”

“What a tragedy,” muttered Rhodey. He was so ungrateful.

 

For the next three days, Pepper and Rhodey took turns checking in on him and making sure he was taking his meds (he was) and getting lots of rest (he was not). Rhodey drove him back to the hospital to get the new cast put on. Obviously, he chose red because it looked awesome. Rhodey kept trying to make him pick purple. He had no taste.

Pepper got very fussy about him walking across campus on crutches, so he had to call Campus Safety for a medical escort, which was embarrassing. He also kind of liked it because his dorm was the furthest away from his lab. (He sacrificed living closer to have a room near Steve. Not that anyone needed to know that. Pepper hadn’t argued because it meant he was getting more exercise.)

Unfortunately, he still had to do his stupid shifts at the Information Systems and Technology office. It was ridiculous. He was broken! He should be resting! (Pepper had given him a dirty look when he had argued that point with the dean. But Fury never took any of Tony’s bullshit anyway, so he knew he wasn’t going to get out of it.)

Tony had also gained a tiny freshman stalker. Pepper thought the whole thing was adorable, so she was no help. Tony liked the kid a lot better when he was timid and only came in once a week while Tony was working to ask him questions. Now, he was there for every fucking one of Tony’s shifts asking him all sorts of questions and talking Tony’s ear off. It fucking sucked. Tony no longer had four free hours to himself—he had four hours of listening to Peter Parker being a smart ass.

“—which is just completely against the point! It’s a technological disaster—”

“Parker,” said Tony. It was already 10:30 and he was still in the IST office. “Office hours ended fifteen minutes ago. Get the fuck out of here.”

Peter grinned at him and—finally, thank fucking goodness—picked up his backpack. “That’s alright. I’ll see you on Monday. Do you need any help?”

“No,” replied Tony through gritted teeth.

“Are you going home for Thanksgiving? I’m probably staying here. Hey, maybe we could hang out?”

Tony used his crutch to push Peter out the door. He just smiled at Tony and kept babbling on. It was so infuriating! He was like a fucking puppy. Why? Tony did not need this much enthusiasm in his life.

Peter was bouncing as he walked. Why did he have so much energy? It made Tony feel old.

“Do you want me to walk you back to your dorm? You know, in case you fall again or something?”

“No! Go bug your girlfriend!” Tony shimmied his phone out of his pocket to call for his campus safety ride.

“Okay! Bye Tony, see you Monday!” He waved and bounced away. Ridiculous.

Tony glared at Peter until he had walked around the corner of the building. So annoying!

Tony took a deep breath and dialed.

“ _Campus Safety_ ,” answered a very familiar voice. Tony’s insides went numb. Fuck! Steve was working tonight. He had been spending a lot more time in his room as to avoid this.

“I need a medical escort,” said Tony, trying to keep his voice even so he didn’t sound like a nervous teenager.

There was a long pause. “ _Your name?_ ”

“Tony Stark.”

“ _Your…um, location?_ ”

“The IST office.”

“ _Your destination?_ ”

“Surprise me,” replied Tony.

There was another long pause. “ _Your escort will arrive shortly._ ” The line went dead.

Tony slowly lowered himself to the ground so he could sit on the curb. His armpits were sore from his crutches, even with the towels that Rhodey had duct taped on for some cushion. His knee had developed this fun tendency of shooting pain at random intervals of the day, and his cast was itchy. He hated everything.

The campus safety SUV pulled up to the curb, and Steve got out wearing an ugly fluorescent vest over his plaid shirt. He still managed to pull it off. (Why was he so perfect? It must be exhausting.)

“Hi,” said Steve, looking down at Tony. “Do you need help getting up?”

Tony didn’t want to look pathetic so he shook his head and pretended that he wasn’t struggling. He almost overbalanced, but Steve caught him. (Tony’s stupid heart was fluttering at their proximity. That needed to stop.)

Steve was silent while he helped Tony into the front seat and stayed silent for the entire ride back to their dorm. It was awkward as fuck. Tony hated it. He did not do well with silence.

“So how do you like working for campus safety?” asked Tony.

Steve shrugged, keeping his eyes fixed on the road. Tony drummed his fingers on the armrest. There had to be something he could say. He always had something clever and witty to say. Why wasn’t his brain working? He blamed his stupid knee. Actually, he blamed Bucky. That asshole.

The car stopped outside of the building. Steve got out and helped Tony get down. His pathetic heart was going haywire again. So stupid.

“Thanks,” said Tony. What the fuck? Why did he sound so breathless—like a lovesick teenager? Fucking ridiculous.

Steve took several steps backward. “It didn’t mean anything,” he said. His voice sounded strange and cold. Tony felt very small.

Steve turned away and drove off, while Tony stared after him. Tony made his way slowly back to his room and collapsed on his bed.

“I think I really fucked up,” said Tony as soon as Pepper answered his call.

“ _I’ll be there in ten minutes_ ,” she replied before hanging up.

Tony rolled across his bed until he reached the coffee maker. He really fucking needed some coffee.

 

 

 

 

Steve was hoping he could leave his shift early, but instead he let Wanda go at 2am when she asked. It had been really quiet the whole weekend because of the Thanksgiving break. He had stayed on campus to work, and Bucky didn’t want to make the drive back home by himself so he had stayed as well. They ate Chinese food with Clint and Natasha on Thanksgiving and watched horror movies. He didn’t think about Tony. He tried not to at least. He hadn’t seen Tony since he gave him that ride to his dorm five days before.

It was fine that Tony didn’t care about what happened on Halloween. Steve knew he was just one of Tony’s hook ups, he just didn’t expect it to hurt so much hearing Tony say it.

Steve rubbed at his eyes and yawned as he climbed the stairs to his room. He was going to need to spend some serious time in the studio tomorrow to get his final project off to a solid start. There were only two weeks left before finals and he still had to fit in extra time to work on chemistry, which was still as hopeless as ever.

As Steve reached his floor, he glanced down the hallway and froze.

Tony was sitting with his back against the wall, just outside of Steve’s door. His eyes were shining and he blinked as though his eyelids were too heavy for him. His crutches were nowhere in sight.

“Tony?” Steve crouched down in front of him. Tony’ eyes were unfocused and his face was flushed. “Are you okay? Where are your crutches?”

Tony’s eyes slid closed and his head dropped forward. He shuddered and made a terrible gagging sound. Steve jumped backwards out of the way. He held his breath, fumbling with his keys until he unlocked the door and shook Bucky awake.

“Absolutely not,” said Bucky, his voice thick with sleep. He gave Steve the finger and rolled over to face the wall. “Whatever it is, just no.”

“Bucky, I need your help!” said Steve shaking him again.

“What the fuck,” Bucky groaned.

“T-Tony’s in the hallway and he…he threw,” Steve swallowed hard. “He’s sick, and I can’t.”

Bucky’s opened one eye to look at Steve. “Doesn’t he have his own friends to puke all over?”

Steve clamped his mouth shut, trying to combat the nausea. He took several deep breaths through his nose before he deemed it safe to open his mouth. “I can’t…deal with this.”

“Didn’t you have to deal with that drunk freshman a couple weeks ago?” asked Bucky, rubbing his eyes.

“Not…that part. Please, Bucky?”

Bucky muttered a string of Russian and rolled out of bed. “You seriously owe me for this.”

“I know,” said Steve.

“Can you at least start dating this fucker so it doesn’t look like I do this kind of shit for just anyone?” Bucky pulled his towel off the hook and stepped out into the hallway before Steve could stutter out an answer.

Steve sat on the floor and watched music videos on his phone until his own nausea subsided.

About 20 minutes later, Steve got a text from Bucky.

_Tasha and Clint are at the door, can you let them in?_

“You must really like this guy, Steve,” said Clint, yawning. He gave Steve a pat on the shoulder before walking toward the bathroom.

Steve felt his face go very red and Natasha gave him a fond smile.

“Pepper is in Chicago until tomorrow visiting her family. I’ll text her in the morning about Stark,” said Natasha. She put her hand on Steve’s arm. “You can sleep in my dorm tonight, if you want.”

Clint walked out of the bathroom and tossed Steve a ring of keys. “Will you grab some clothes for Stark? Here’s his keys. We stuck him in the shower to hose him off. He had puke all—”

Steve turned and ran down the hallway to avoid the rest of Clint’s description before he threw up too.

Tony’s room was even more of a disaster than Steve remembered. The floor was a maze of clothes, wires, textbooks, and things Steve didn’t even want to identify. His crutches were propped up against his desk. Why hadn’t he used them? He couldn’t exactly walk without them.

“I thought James was a mess,” said Natasha, stepping in after him and glancing around.

“I can’t even tell what’s clean,” said Steve, opening up the dresser drawers. They were all empty. “Does he ever do laundry?”

Natasha pulled a bottle of laundry detergent off the window sill. A layer of dust coated the bottle and she drew a line through it with her finger. “I don’t think so.”

Steve spied a laundry basket shoved under the bed and yanked it out. He scooped out the handful of flash drives from the bottom of it and set them on the desk. (Why were they in a laundry basket?) Steve stripped the sheets off Tony’s bed and tossed his pillow in the basket for good measure.

Natasha went to grab Steve and Bucky’s laundry baskets and they filled those with Tony’s clothes as well. They used all six washers in the basement to fit everything. Steve had never done this much laundry in his life. In the meantime, he and Natasha tackled the rest of Tony’s room, bagging up old wrappers and empty coffee bags. It was an actual disaster. How did Tony live like this?

Bucky came in, soaking wet and rested his hip against the doorframe. “I thought I asked for some clothes,” he said.

“They’re in the wash for another 15 minutes,” replied Natasha.

Bucky looked around the room and laughed. “And you thought I was bad. He’s gonna wear your clothes,” he said with a nod to Steve.

Natasha said something to him in Russian and they both smirked at Steve.

“I hate when you do that,” Steve muttered. He held out some kind of metal thing with a bunch of wires sticking out of one side. “What is this?”

“Add it to the pile,” said Natasha, pointing the box of what Steve had named “mysterious doohickeys.” (He had no plans to share that information with anyone else. It was a silly name.)

“I’m going to bring him back to our room,” said Bucky. “I’ll put him on my bed because I don’t really care. You’re doing my laundry for the rest of my life, just so you know.”

As soon as all of Tony’s clothes had finished drying, Steve draped the sheets over the mattress and fell asleep with Natasha curled up behind him and Clint sprawled across his legs. What had he gotten himself into?

 

 

 

 

Tony was genuinely dying. He had to be. His insides had left his body and now he was dead. Actually if he was dead, he probably wouldn’t feel this shitty. He let out a long groan.  It didn’t help.

“Oh good, you’re not dead,” said a voice. A demon probably. Oh great, he was on his way to hell. “Your fever’s gone so you should be feeling better.”

“I do not,” said Tony. Or at least that’s what he was trying to say. It came out rather garbled. A cold hand touched his forehead and Tony forced his eyes open.

“He’s alive!” said Bucky with his shit-eating grin.

“I hate you,” muttered Tony. He burrowed himself under the blankets.

“You puked on me three times yesterday. I will have my revenge,” said that metal-armed asshole.

The blankets did not smell like they were his. Actually, Tony didn’t even have a comforter, he had sheets and they didn’t smell like…well, like they were as clean as this blanket. Where the fuck was he? He opened his eyes again and pushed the mystery blanket off his face. (A fucking terrible plan, but it had to be done.) Why the fuck was he in Steve’s room?

“What the fuck?” he muttered. The last thing he remembered was being in his own room eating those weird noodles Bruce had given him. Nothing else.

“Do you even remember last night?” asked Bucky.

Tony just glared at him, because no, he didn’t and that was none of his fucking business. Tony sat up and closed his eyes when the world started spinning.

“Drink this,” said Bucky, and a straw was unceremoniously shoved into his mouth. He did in fact drink. It was just water, so that was fine. He felt a little bit better.

“Can I go now?” asked Tony. He wanted to go hide out in his room and die in peace.

“Are you going to puke on me if I pick you up?”

“Maybe.” And he wasn’t lying. What the fuck was in those noodles? They did taste weird, but Tony figured it had been the shit ton of cilantro. Although, he probably should have put them in a fridge somewhere instead of letting them sit on his window sill for an entire day…

“Then you’re staying there,” said Bucky. He plopped down onto his desk chair and started typing like his keyboard was on fire. What was he doing to that poor thing? That’s abuse.

“Did your keyboard insult your honor or something?” Tony pushed himself into a sitting position. (Why was his life like this? What did he do to deserve this pain?)

Bucky ignored him. Rude. Tony wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and put on his best pouting face. He would not be ignored, and especially not by a keyboard abuser. What could he even be typing that required this much effort? Maybe the keys were broken so he had to type that intensely to make them work? Or he was just an asshole. Yeah, that was probably it.

Okay, Bucky was still ignoring him and Tony was bored. He didn’t even have his phone. His pants didn’t even have pockets—which was just wrong. What sweatpants didn’t have pockets? All of his sweatpants did, that’s for damn sure. Speaking of his pants, where were they? He was pretty sure that he was wearing his own clothes last night. He did have a tendency to forget to do that, but he was pretty sure he put clothes on. Didn’t he?

Yeah, he was wearing clothes, because he felt like shit and lay on the floor for a while. Except that his floor was disgusting so he crawled out into the hallway, because standing sounded like a terrible idea. But then he was lying in the middle of the floor, so he moved until he was against a wall like he had a real purpose for being out there.

Oh fuck, it was all coming back to him. Because Steve had shown up and that was when Tony puked—so attractive, well done, Tony—and then Bucky had shown up and carried him to the bathroom.

What an absolute shit show! He was the actual worst human being.

“I’m the worst human being,” he groaned, flopping back on the bed.

“You’re not the worst,” said Bucky. “I’ll give you that.”

“It’s your fault I fractured my knee,” muttered Tony.

Bucky barked out a laugh. “Yeah, I _made_ you fall off a wall. You’re just a little Humpty Dumpty…poor, fragile Stark.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed. “This conversation seems like it’s going to lead to talking about my feelings, so we should just stop here.”

“Well, since you brought it up,” said Bucky. Well, fuck. “Why didn’t you tell Pepper about Steve?”

“I don’t talk about feelings with you. This has been established.”

“Whatever.” Bucky leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know what Steve sees in you.”

“He doesn’t see anything in me. He doesn’t even like me.” Okay it was time to go. This needed to stop because Pepper wasn’t here. This was a Pepper kind of conversation. Not a Bucky conversation. The last time he had a conversation with Bucky, he ended up with a broken bone.

Bucky sighed and closed his laptop. “Of course he likes you, asshat. Do you think he goes out of his way to help all the stupid idiots on campus?”

“Yes,” said Tony. “I legitimately think that.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Stark, we don’t have to talk about your feelings, but can you consider that Steve does have feelings—specifically for you?”

“No, he doesn’t.” Tony crossed his arms because that’s how arguments are won.

“He wouldn’t talk to me for three whole days after the Six Flags thing because we held hands and then ditched him to ride roller coasters.”

“Well, you weren’t my first choice.”

Bucky leaned forward on his elbows. “You helped me out. You didn’t have to do that. You could have just kept walking—they would have come back for me, eventually.”

“I should have!” Tony threw his hands in the air. “Then I wouldn’t have to listen to all this bullshit. And I can’t even leave—you’ve actually trapped me into this conversation!”

Bucky scoffed at him. “You’re actually a decent person, so can you maybe muster up some Gryffindor courage and ask Steve out? You’d be saving the rest of us from watching you two pining after each other like lovesick puppies. I’d really appreciate it.” Bucky crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow like he just made some kind of irrefutable argument.

“I’m clearly a Ravenclaw,” replied Tony.

Bucky sighed and rolled his eyes. So overdramatic. Why was Tony still even in here? He wanted to hide in his room and stop being so fucking embarrassing in front of Steve. Tony shoved the blankets to the foot of the bed so he could get up. He’d hop on one leg back to his room if he had to.

He put one foot on the ground and Bucky was standing in front of him about a second later. “What are you doing?”

“I’m leaving,” replied Tony. He tried standing, but didn’t quite make it all the way up before Bucky was pushing him back down.

“Hold on,” said Bucky. “Just stay there so I can get your stupid crutches.” He started muttering again in his muttering language.

“What language is that?” asked Tony.

Bucky paused with one hand on the door. “Russian.”

“Why do you speak Russian?”

Bucky smirked at him. “It’s classified.” And he walked out of the room. Did he think he was James fucking Bond or some shit? What an asshole.

Bucky came back with Tony’s crutches and Tony did not thank him. He hated those fucking things. He still had another five weeks of torture. Natasha Romanoff and her blond lapdog (Cliff, maybe?) walked in behind Bucky and immediately settled themselves on Steve’s bed. Bucky saluted him as he left, and Tony flicked him off.

Tony was going to collapse into his bed and not move again until Pepper came back. Why did she have to go all the way to Chicago?

Except…there was someone already in Tony’s bed. Steve was sprawled diagonally across the mattress, fast asleep. Tony let the door close with a loud click, but Steve didn’t even move.

Fuck it. Tony wasn’t dealing with this now. He sat down on the bed and shoved his crutches underneath. He pillowed his head on Steve’s chest and fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to get Peter Parker in there, I just couldn't help myself—especially after seeing Civil War. He was so adorable! :)


	7. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Pepper does not teleport, Steve saves the day, and Tony just can't win.  
> But he does have coffee, so there is that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I lied. There's one more chapter after this.  
> It was supposed to all be attached to this one, but that half wasn't ready and I haven't posted in FOREVER! (So sorry about that.)  
> I definitely had a plan and then wrote something entirely different...whoops. 
> 
> Thank you for all your kind comments and kudos! They give me life.

Steve blinked awake, trying to figure out who was laying directly on top of him and snoring in his ear. Probably Clint, because Natasha was silent while she slept. Everything about her was a little terrifying.

Whoever it was, squirmed and tightened their grip on his shirt. Steve blinked some more and turned his head. Where was he? This wasn’t his room. How did he end up sleeping somewhere—oh no. No, no, no. Tony was sprawled on top of him. Tony was breathing in his ear and holding onto his shirt like a lifeline. Oh no, not this again. Why did this keep happening?

At least he was wearing clothes this time.

After several moments of panic, Steve actually remembered why he was in Tony’s room. Right, the laundry. All of Tony’s clothes filled the three laundry baskets on the floor. He probably shouldn’t just leave them all there like that. Tony was still on crutches and bending over was difficult for him. Also, judging from the previous state of his room, Tony would probably just leave everything in the baskets and Steve would never get them back. Bucky would never let him live it down.

Steve carefully wiggled out from underneath Tony, his face on fire while Tony whined and clung to him. The moment Steve had gotten free Tony’s arms shot out like they were seeking heat and grabbed the back of Steve’s shirt. But at least Tony didn’t wake up. So Steve leaned over to drag the baskets over to the bed and started folding. It did not help that Tony wrapped his arms around Steve’s back to curl around him in his sleep. He was drooling on Steve’s leg. (And Steve was not endeared in the slightest, or at least that’s what he kept telling himself.)

He was supposed to be done with Tony. He was just a one night stand that didn’t matter, so why did Tony have to keep showing up in Steve’s life? At least next year, Bucky and Steve were moving into an apartment, so Tony wouldn’t live across the hall anymore. Distance would be good for them. It hadn’t been like this with his other hookup. They ended things and that was it.

Why was he still thinking about Tony, then? He’d rather go back to when Tony was completely oblivious of Steve’s existence.

Steve folded the last shirt and straightened up, stretching out his back. Tony snorted and clawed at Steve’s shirt.

“Don’t…the aliens…” muttered Tony sleepily. “Gotta…close the portal…”

Steve sighed. Okay, so Tony was hopelessly endearing. But maybe they could be friends? It’d be better than nothing at all.

“There’s a…get the missile…stop the…” Tony frowned. “Steve…wait…”

Tony thrashed around and tightened his grip on Steve’s shirt. Steve, preoccupied by Tony dreaming about him, went completely still while his stomach filled with butterflies.

Tony whimpered and Steve put a hand on Tony’s shoulder to wake him.

Tony’s eyes flew open and he pushed himself into a sitting position. “I gotta save New York,” he yelled putting his hands out in front of himself like he was about to stop himself from hitting a wall.

Steve, in the meantime, had slid off the bed and onto the ground out of surprise.

Tony glanced wildly around the room before pointing at the coffeemaker. “Yes,” he muttered still pointing, but not making any attempt to actually reach it. He let out a sigh and flopped back onto the bed. A moment later, he was snoring.

Steve’s heartbeat was pounding in his ears. He took several deep breaths. Tony was still fast asleep and snoring. Steve flicked on the coffee maker and started putting the folded clothes into Tony’s drawers, stopping several times to stifle his laughter with his hand.

Friends. He could do that. After all, friends were totally entitled to tease each other about superhero dreams. Tony would be embarrassed and probably blame it on a lack of coffee while Steve laughed.

(He’d much rather be lying next to Tony and kiss away Tony’s sputtered protests, but he’d take what he could get.)

Steve dropped a pile of socks onto the ground. What was he still doing here? And why was he thinking about kissing Tony? Things weren’t like that between them. Tony had made sure that was perfectly clear.  

Steve stuffed the socks into the drawer and slid it closed. Maybe it’d be best if he just stayed away from Tony for a while. Steve definitely had enough work to do. He really did need to spend some serious hours in the studio before his gallery final. He only had two more weeks to get everything perfect—and that included squeezing in time for chemistry tutoring with Bruce. And regular things like food and sleep.

Steve grabbed the empty laundry baskets and didn’t look back as he walked out of Tony’s room. He didn’t have time to deal with his stupid, unrequited feelings right now.

 

 

 

 

Fuck everything.

Tony’s backpack dug into his shoulders and his arms ached from his crutches, but that did not stop his determination. If Pepper found out that he had been in his lab until 3am, he’d never hear the end of it. She’d probably take his crutches and put a tracker around his ankle. Not to mention, stupid Campus Safety was closed so he couldn’t get a ride. He was never going to make it. He could have called Rhodey, but he was a tattletale. Where was the loyalty?

He just wanted to get in some quality lab time before Thanksgiving break was over. And he had spent most of it asleep. Stupid human limitations. Who needed that kind of nonsense?

Tony would just blame it on the fact that all of his clothes ended up in his actual drawers and he spent a full hour trying to find them, which prevented him from working half the day. Although, his coffeemaker was filled with fresh coffee, so he really couldn’t be mad about the complete invasion of his privacy. It was magical.

He’d called Pepper, sure that she had finally cracked, until realizing halfway through his accusation that she was still in Chicago. Not that Tony would put it past her to teleport, but he was pretty sure she couldn’t do that yet. Instead, he found out that Steve had cleaned out his room and he almost hung up on Pepper to panic by himself. Who does other people’s laundry? His sheets were clean! All his flash drives had reappeared on his desk and the whole place actually looked livable. How did Tony end up with this absolute Prince Charming in his life?

Did that make him a damsel in distress? (Pepper said yes…rude.)

After that, Tony called Bruce to yell at him about the noodles that almost killed him, and got a lecture on proper food storage. Ridiculous. The man drinks tea out of flowery mugs, where does he get off scolding people?

Tony rounded the corner of the student union and stopped to take a breather. He was so close. He could almost see the dorms, he could totally do this. And as soon as he made it through the door he was never moving again. Not until his cast was gone and he could walk like a normal human. Maybe he should get a metal leg. That would be kind of awesome—and it would definitely be gold.

Laughter snapped him back to reality. A group of guys were walking down the pathway toward him, swinging beer bottles. Of course. This was karma biting him in the ass.

There were five of them. Rhodey liked to call them the “Fab Five” like those cheerleaders from Texas. Tony didn’t really like to think about them at all. He had been hoping they had all dropped out or transferred after all the events of last year’s huge blowout party. But, of course not—Tony wasn’t allowed to have nice things.

He supposed that he should have expected this to happen eventually. He’d gotten out easy by being unconscious in the hospital while Pepper took care of all the threats and warnings to stay away from Tony. She was good at that kind of thing.

“Tony Stark,” said Alexander Pierce, flanked by his cronies. He lifted the bottle to his lips and took a long drink, his eyes fixed on Tony. “Where’s your little redhead defender?”

The rest of them sniggered and Tony’s hands tightened on his crutches. He relaxed his shoulders trying to look casual. “Gentlemen, to what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“I never see you around anymore, Stark,” said Rumlow, punctuating his statement by stepping forward and pushing Tony into the wall. That wasn’t really necessary.

“Better things to do,” replied Tony, readjusting his crutches. If he really needed to, he could probably hit Rumlow in the knee, to get some kind of head start. Although Rumlow didn’t really look like the kind of person that went down easily…maybe he should hit a little higher…

Rumlow handed his half-empty bottle to Rollins and took another step forward, bracing his hands on Tony’s crutches. Okay, so that plan wasn’t going to work. He could try to head-butt him, but that would probably hurt Tony more than Rumlow. Even if it did work, the rest of them would be on him in an instant. Fuck.

“You think you’re so much better than us, don’t you?” growled Rumlow, knocking Tony into the wall again. His breath was vile and bitter from the alcohol, making Tony gag.

Rollins stepped forward and punched him in the stomach. Tony doubled over, gasping. He could hear Sitwell and Stern laughing somewhere off to the side—cowardly bastards.

Someone grabbed his hair, forcing his head up. Alex sneered in his face. “I don’t think we fully finished our conversation when that little bitch showed up to save you. I wouldn’t want to leave you without a proper resolution.”

Alex took a step back and Rumlow delivered another blow to Tony’s stomach. He coughed and gasped in pain, gritting his teeth to keep from crying out.

“Do you want me to apologize for having such bad taste?” said Tony. He earned another punch to the ribs this time.  

“Is there a problem?” said a voice and they all went still. Steve was walking up the path. Shit! What the hell was he doing walking around at three in the morning?

“No problem,” replied Alex silkily. Stern moved sideways to hide behind Rollins, fidgeting with the bottle in his hand. Rumlow turned and put an arm around Tony’s shoulders like they were friends. Rumlow’s fingers dug into Tony’s shoulder and he fought back a wince.

“No, no problem,” repeated Tony, forcing a smile. He couldn’t even manage to straighten up, still trying to catch his breath.

But Steve, the brave idiot, kept coming closer. “Good. Come on, Tony, let’s go.”

“This has nothing to do with you, Rogers,” said Rumlow, his grin feral. Rollins cracked his knuckles. Tony forced himself to stay still instead of squirming to get away from Rumlow’s tight grasp. Steve drew himself up to his full height, looking far more threatening than someone wearing khakis should.

“Let him go, Brock,” said Steve, his voice low and dangerous. “Or I’ll make you.” (Tony might have been a little turned on, if he wasn’t in so much pain.)

To Tony’s great surprise, Alex put a hand on Rumlow’s shoulder. “There’s no need for that. We’re leaving.”

Rumlow let go of Tony’s shoulder and flashed an ugly sneer at Steve before following Alex as they walked back the way they came. Steve stood still until they were all out of sight. Tony didn’t bother trying to stand up anymore and bent over as much as he could, trying to breathe through the pain. Son of a bitch—that hurt.

“Are you okay?” asked Steve, coming closer.

“Where’s the white steed?” asked Tony.

“The…what?”

Tony looked up at Steve. “Aren’t you supposed to show up on a white steed when rescuing people?” (Tony almost called himself a damsel, but he really didn’t need that blow to his ego right now.)

“Come on,” said Steve, relaxing. He eased Tony’s backpack off and slung it over his shoulder. “What are you doing out here so late?”

“I should have just stayed in my lab, that’s what,” said Tony, taking one step forward. Oh that fucking hurt. He definitely should have faced Pepper’s wrath and stayed the night. His lungs were on fire and he just wanted to curl up on the ground and die in peace. Fucking Alex Pierce.

Tony stopped trying to walk and hunched over, breathing through his nose so his fucking pathetic whimpers wouldn’t accidentally slip out.

“Here,” said Steve. He shifted Tony’s backpack and reached out to press himself against Tony’s side, taking the place of Tony’s crutch. He let Tony collapse against him. “Are you okay?”

Tony took a deep breath. Fuck! That was a bad idea.

“Was that your…ex?” asked Steve, fiddling with the crutch he was holding.

“Something like that,” gasped out Tony. His entire body ached. A wheelchair would’ve been nice right about now. His knee was not okay with being vertical for so long, and kept sending shooting pains all the way up to his spine.

Steve didn’t push for a better explanation, and Tony was glad. He really didn’t want to talk about exactly how stupid he had been last year. He had embarrassed himself in front of Steve already.

They walked so slowly that it probably took them a full thirty minutes to make the short walk that probably would have taken Steve three minutes. The awkward silence grew so much that Tony’s mouth exploded once they had almost reached the building.

 “Sorry for acting like such an asshole,” he said, very loud. “And thanks for saving me…again.”

Steve’s face went so red that Tony could see it even in the dim light. “What are friends for?”

Tony’s heart went still. Friends? Okay, that was…okay. Sure, they could be friends. That…was okay. Totally cool.

“Aren’t we friends?” asked Steve. “I mean…we don’t have to be, I guess.”

Shit, had Tony been speaking out loud again?

“Yes?” answered Steve.

Tony deliberately checked to make sure his mouth was closed. Fuck his traitorous mouth!

Tony swallowed hard. “No, yeah, friends are great. I mean, it doesn’t sound as hardcore as a supreme enemy you can make out with sometimes in secret, but yeah, friends.”

What actual the fuck was coming out of his mouth? Why wasn’t Pepper here to save this conversation? They talked about this! She told him almost word for word how to talk to Steve! This was not what he was supposed to say—he was supposed to talk about feelings and other stuff he hated.

“A…what?” replied Steve slowly, like Tony was an absolute psychopath.

“I need coffee,” said Tony. “That’s all. That will fix everything. Caffeine cures all.”

Steve didn’t say anything else while they walked into the building and turned down the hallway toward their dorms. 

Tony fucked up again! Why did he keep doing this? Why was this so difficult? Probably because Steve embodied everything good in the world and Tony was the scum of the earth. It was a deserved suffering. But wasn’t tonight bad enough? Hadn’t he done enough suffering?

The voice in his head that sounded like Pepper was chastising him for being overdramatic. Why did he even have that voice in his head?  That’s not fair.

They stopped in front of Tony’s door, and Tony fumbled with his keys. He had to say something. He needed to fix this, or at least stop making everything worse.

He finally managed to unlock the door and looked back up at Steve to speak, but froze. Steve had a strange look on his face—an expression that Tony had only ever seen puppies make when they thought you were tricking them. Tony instantly felt guilty and had no idea why.

“Thanks,” said Tony, not sure what was going on.

Steve opened his mouth to say something and then closed it. Tony just stared at him.

What was happening? Tony was panicking and he had no coffee to calm him down.

“Anytime,” said Steve finally. He gave Tony a soft smile that made Tony’s deadened heart flutter back to life.

Steve leaned forward and—holy shit, were they going to kiss? Tony’s heart was beating so fast, he felt dizzy. He couldn’t believe it. Steve was going to kiss him! He didn’t know that being pathetic could work in his favor like this! But he’d totally—

Steve put Tony’s backpack on the ground and flicked on the light. “I’ll…um, see you later,” he said, before walking to his own room.

Tony watched the door swing shut after him.

He was going to need a lot of coffee and a lot of ibuprofen before he thought about anything. What the fuck just happened?

 

 “JARVIS, run the numbers on the energy consumption again, it still looks too high,” said Tony glancing over the schematics he had drawn up after spending another three straight days in his lab. He told Pepper what had happened a week ago with Pierce. After a very long, very angry silence she told him that he should have just left earlier and gotten a ride with Campus Safety. He just couldn’t win.

He also couldn’t understand what was taking Professor Strange so long to approve his project. Okay, so what if there were “too many unknown variables” and “the potential for disaster”? Tony knew what he was doing.

“JARVIS?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Did you run the numbers?” Tony waited, but got no response. “JARVIS?”

“Sir?”

“Are you running the numbers, or not?”

No answer…so apparently not.

“Play music.”

Tony was met with silence. He tossed his tablet onto his bed and woke up his computer monitors to check over JARVIS’ programming.

“Why aren’t you answering?” muttered Tony.

There was a knock on the door and Tony gingerly moved his leg down from where he had propped it on his bed so he could slide backward. It was probably just Pepper. Maybe she had food…or better yet, coffee. He was out of clean mugs and it was not turning out well. Pepper hadn’t been disgusted enough to wash them for him. Now was a good a time as any.

“Come in,” said Tony, pushing down on the door handle to open it. He slid back over to his desk to continue working on JARVIS’ programming. His A.I. had been doing pretty well up until today. Plus, he’d stopped calling Tony “honey” which was much appreciated.

“Hey Tony, I was wondering—”

That was not Pepper’s voice. Tony pushed his mouse off the desk in his haste to look up. Steve was standing in the doorway red-faced and blushing all the way down to his shirt collar. (He was fucking adorable.)

They hadn’t spoken since that night that Tony made a fool out of himself, so Tony had a whole week to convince himself that he was being an absolute lovesick idiot. Steve was not interested, and that was okay. Whatever. No big deal.

“Yes?” said Tony, his eyes kept darting between Steve and his mouse lying helplessly on the floor. He was going to have a hell of a time picking that up. Steve’s eyes trailed down the length of Tony’s body before he stared at some fixed point behind Tony. He went an even deeper red and Tony looked down at himself. Oh…this was awkward.

“Why aren’t you wearing clothes?” asked Steve, his voice tight.

Tony shrugged. “Because someone put them in drawers and that’s too far away. Besides, it’s not like you haven’t seen me naked before.”

“I was…um, never mind. Sorry for bothering you.” Steve turned back to the door.

Fuck! Fuck, this was not what Tony wanted. He reached over to yank the sheets off his bed and pulled them over himself. (A shame, really.)

“Wait,” said Tony. Deep breath. He could totally do this. He just needed to chill—this was not a big deal.

“There’s a gallery showing,” said Steve, the words tumbling out of his mouth like he only had one breath to say them all. “On Friday. My professor wants us to bring someone to help us present so we’re not all, um, standing around staring at each other’s work all night, and like other people can come too, but he has like this thing about seeing how someone else would, like, present your art for you…”

Tony’s insides were doing something weird—like he was cold and excited and wiggling? It was a new feeling that he didn’t know how to process. He kind of hated it, so he swallowed hard to suppress it.

“Why aren’t you bringing Bucky?” asked Tony. He attempted a casual tone, but it came out a little bitter.

“Well, um, Bucky already knows about…he knows me…my art…” Steve scrubbed a hand through his hair. “He’s busy.”

Tony nodded, in place of the words that were not coming out of his mouth. He could do this. He could say yes to Steve.

“Friday?” That was as close as his mouth could get to an answer. He’d take it.

“You have no scheduled events for Friday evening,” said JARVIS, making both Tony and Steve jump.

“You listen to that, but you don’t answer direct questions?” said Tony, glaring at the specs still up on the screen.

JARVIS did not respond.

“Motherfucker!” Tony flicked off the screen (because he was extremely mature) and turned back to Steve. Stupid A.I. just has to be an asshole at this moment to make Tony look like a fucking idiot. Steve’s eyes were very wide as he glanced between Tony and the monitor. Tony cleared his throat because he really didn’t know what to do in the awkward silence.

 “So it looks like I’m free,” said Tony. He leaned back casually, but his hands were twisted into his sheets so Steve wouldn’t know how completely absurd and nervous Tony was.

“It starts at 7,” replied Steve.

“Okay, cool, yeah, I’ll be there.”

Steve smiled and Tony’s heart attempted to jump out of his chest. “Thanks for doing this. I’ll see you on Friday.”

“It’s a date,” blurted Tony because his brain was clearly not functioning.

Steve backed into the door and almost fell over. Tony turned away to let him gather up his dignity (and certainly not to hide his own stupid red face. He was far too cool to blush.) As soon as the door closed behind Steve, Tony banged his head down on the desk. It hurt.

“I’ve taken the liberty to adding this event to your calendar,” said JARVIS and Tony banged his head on the desk again. Fuck! What had he gotten himself into?

 

 

What was he even supposed to wear? And was he going to have like note cards or something? What the fuck did he know about art? Absofuckinglutely nothing, that’s for sure. Pepper probably knew things…didn’t she work at the gallery on campus?

He was going to have to show up in sweatpants…that was embarrassing. It’s not like he could fit skinny jeans over his stupid cast. Wearing shorts in December was probably not the wisest idea. What was Steve going to wear? Was this casual? Black tie? Did Tony even own a tie? He probably had a bowtie somewhere…Rhodey had a tie. Although he wouldn’t be caught dead in Rhodey’s clothes—mostly because Rhodey would kill him first. Selfish jerk.

How long did these art things last? When he had to go to whatever gallery events with his parents, he usually stole champagne and drank until he was embarrassing enough to be sent home. That probably wasn’t going to be an option. He’d have to socialize. Fuck. And talk about art! What if Steve wasn’t even that good? Was he supposed to lie? Did Tony even know what good art was? Pepper told him that he had terrible taste, but what did that mean? Porn is art, right? He knew about that. What if Steve drew nudes? Is that weird? Or is that like a normal art thing?

If Steve had nudes they certainly wouldn’t be of himself. That was a disappointing thought.

Tony didn’t even know what kind of art he was getting himself into! What if it was like weird abstract shit that didn’t make any sense? What was he supposed to say? What do people say about other people’s art? Probably a lot of bullshit that sounds really nice. He could do that. He could bullshit all day long.

He needed to up his caffeine intake. Like, by a lot. A couple shots of whiskey would also work, but he probably shouldn’t mix alcohol and Steve, since the last time had gone so spectacularly well.

Although, Tony wouldn’t mind if there was a repeat. Preferably one he remembered.

Was this a date? Tony had called it that (out of desperation, because he was weak) and Steve hadn’t corrected him. What if Steve’s art sucked and Tony was a jerk, and this was totally a date and Tony didn’t even know? He’d ruin everything! Why does he have to ruin everything? Why does his life have to be like this?

“Are you even listening?”

Tony blinked a couple of times, bewildered. Peter Parker was staring at him from across the IST desk. His eyebrows were raised like he might have been annoyed, but he was also still smiling.

“What?”

Peter laughed. “You’ve been staring at the wall for like fifteen minutes. You’re being really spacey today.” He had said it so casually, like they were just talking about rotational inertia instead of insulting Tony’s entire being.

“Spacey?” spat Tony.

Peter put his hands up in surrender. “Normally you spend the whole time looking annoyed, but today you’ve just been…” He made some kind of exaggerated vague expression that Tony had never made in his life.

“Maybe you’re just extra boring today.”

Peter thought about it. “Nah. I made three different _Firefly_ references and you didn’t catch any of them.”

Before Tony could come up with a scathing retort, Darcy came running through the door screaming and thrust her laptop into Tony’s arms.

“This is my entire life! I can’t lose everything!” She collapsed into the chair that Peter was currently occupying and promptly started sobbing.

“I have to go,” said Peter, slipping out of the chair like a gangly ninja. How did he even do that?

“Don’t you dare,” said Tony, who had absolutely no escape and was not about to deal with this alone.

Peter stared between him and Darcy for one desperate moment before he picked up his bag and ducked out into the hallway. Darcy continued to sob, dropping her head onto Tony’s desk.

Tony was not okay with this. What the actual fuck? This was not his job. Crying people did not come to him. He actively avoided these kinds of situations. What the fuck was he supposed to do? Where the fuck was Pepper? Or Rhodey? Or literally anyone else. Fucking Peter abandoned him! Useless fucking freshmen.

Okay, but she was still crying. Tony was still holding her laptop and had no idea what his life had become. Is this a joke? Or like some kind of test? What was next? Clowns? Crying clowns…probably with chainsaws. He had to be having a nightmare right now.

“Darcy?” he said very quietly.

The volume of her sobs increased and so did Tony’s heart rate. His stress levels were already off the scale. He didn’t even have any fucking coffee!

Bucky walked through the door about ten seconds later, temporarily distracting Tony from his panicked thoughts. His hair looked like he had put it up in a bun at one point, and then violently pulled at it until most of his hair was hanging in his face. But now was not the time to worry about that. Bucky was also holding his laptop and stared bewildered at the scene in front of him.

“I need help,” whispered Tony, edging as far away from Darcy as he could. It was very difficult to move backwards when he had a laptop in one hand, his phone in the other, and his leg propped up on another chair that did not have wheels.

“I can see that,” replied Bucky sounding as though he was choosing his words very carefully.

 “She’s crying and I don’t know how to make it stop. She just handed me her laptop and started crying and I don’t know what to do.” Tony was babbling and his voice had jumped to a much higher octave than it should have.

There was a long silence and Tony was legitimately about to lose his mind.

“Darcy?” said Bucky crouching down beside her. “Are you okay?”

She started saying words between her sobs and Bucky put his hand on her shoulder.

“Stark,” said Bucky sharply. “Be useful and take a look at her laptop. She said it froze or something. Do you think you can handle that?”

Tony nodded dumbly at him for a solid twenty seconds before actually registering the words he had said. Laptop. Right. He could do that.

Tony went to war with a virus that had taken over Darcy’s computer. It was messy, but Tony managed to avoid any casualties, because he was that good. She hugged him so hard he probably lost a year off his life, and then rushed off.

Bucky was balancing on the back two chair legs with his feet on Tony’s desk. Tony really wanted to push him over.

“Do you intentionally get yourself into these situations, or do you just have really bad luck?”

Tony glared at him. “Can I help you, or do you just like to watch me struggle?”

Bucky grinned. “Both. I forgot my password and got locked out of the network. Can you reset it, or whatever?”

Tony shrugged and took Bucky’s laptop. “Why are you even here? You could have called for this.”

“I was just upstairs using the…” Bucky’s chair slammed down as he leaned forward and Tony definitely didn’t jump, because he was not that easily scared. “Steve asked you to go to his gallery show on Friday.”

“Was that a question?” Tony held out the laptop, but Bucky didn’t take it.

“Don’t fuck this up,” said Bucky, his hands on Tony’s desk. Tony leaned away from him before he could stop himself.

Bucky glared him down for another few (terrifying) moments before taking his laptop. “Thanks, Stark.”

“So no pressure then?” Tony yelled after him.

Bucky didn’t answer and Tony slumped in his seat. He really needed to get his shit together before Friday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter to go! (For real this time)  
> I will be doing a lot of moving and painting walls, so it might take me a little bit to get the next chapter up.  
> (But not as long as it took for this one. Promise!)


	8. Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tony would look great wearing nothing but a big ass blue diamond, thank you very much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end is finally here!  
> Also, I'm sorry it's like 1am, so if there are any horrible mistakes I'll probably end up fixing them in a couple of hours after I've actually slept :)
> 
> Enjoy!!

Tony felt like an absolute idiot sitting in this chair in a suit jacket and sweatpants. There was a stain on the inseam and Tony awkwardly crossed his legs to hide it.

Pepper, being her usual self, had burst into his lab this afternoon and made him take a bath at Rhodey’s apartment. An actual bath, like he was five years old!

Okay, it was actually really nice to sit in warm water and not hobble around the shower with a saran-wrapped cast. And he smelled minty fresh from Pepper’s soap ball. (She called it a “bath bomb,” but it was not impressive enough to earn that kind of name.)

He was even wearing his shiny event shoes that Pepper kept in her room so that they didn’t get scuffed or squashed when Tony was looking for something in his room. (Jarvis also threatened to make Tony start shining them, and that was not going to happen.) Tony even let Pepper do his hair the way she wanted, so he looked like a reasonably put together human.

He spent so long staring at himself in the mirror, that Pepper called him a narcissist. To be fair, he looked damn good and had every right to admire himself. He also contemplated how good he’d look with a goatee. Probably amazing, as usual. (But would Steve like him if he had a goatee?)

Moving on.

The unfortunate part of the whole thing was that he was an hour early because that’s when Pepper needed to be at the gallery. He needed to build a flying suit to solve this mobility issue. That’d be so badass—just think of what kind of entrances he could make!

He hadn’t even seen Steve’s artwork, because Pepper decided that Steve should be the one to show him. Tony needed time to come up with something to say. Was he just supposed to improvise everything?

Actually, improvising was kind of his forte, so okay, that’s fine.

“…I just left him over here so you could show him yourself,” said Pepper and Tony glanced up from his knees. (Pepper also took away his phone, because she’s cruel.)

Steve trailed behind her, his hands deep in the pockets of a well tailored navy blue suit that made Tony’s mouth water. His cheeks went pink when he met Tony’s eyes and Tony had to pinch his own leg to keep from grinning stupidly at Steve.

“Thanks for doing this,” said Steve in a rush of breath. His eyes were very blue. That should be illegal.

“Tony loves hearing the sound of his own voice,” said Pepper, handing him the evil crutches.

He glared at her because although that was true, it was also rude.

“You’re harassing patrons, I’d like to speak to your supervisor,” replied Tony.

She rolled her eyes at him. “Steve, do you mind taking Tony back to his dorm after the show? I’ll be here forever cleaning up.”

“N-no problem,” said Steve, blushing a deeper red.

Pepper leaned over to kiss Tony’s cheek. “Don’t say I never did anything nice for you,” she whispered before walking away to do whatever she did here. Harass more people, probably.

“So, where’s your…art?” asked Tony.

“Oh, right,” said Steve, bouncing nervously on toes before walking Tony down a hallway and through an arched doorway.

“Is it nudes?” asked Tony.

“Nudes?” repeated Steve, his head cocked to the side like a puppy. 

“Because I would be so okay with that.”

A smile spread across Steve’s face, which Tony was not expecting. Steve’s wasn’t even blushing. What was happening?

“I’m sure you would be,” replied Steve. “But no.”

He turned and gestured at a bunch of black and white photographs of buildings and bridges. Tony recognized the Brooklyn Bridge, which was the largest piece. Then there were some more buildings that looked familiar—New York, maybe? Tony took a step forward and blinked several times. These weren’t photographs, these were drawings.

Holy shit.

“It’s an architecture study, mostly,” said Steve. He pointed to a series of small ink drawings with watercolor backgrounds. “This was my effort to connect in my watercolor class, but yeah, everything else is just—”

Steve was talking about art things, but Tony was too busy internally freaking out to listen. Steve was amazing! Tony was mentally prepared to muster up some bullshit about “composition” and “artist’s vision” (because those sounded like fancy art terms and Pepper didn’t roll her eyes when he had suggested them). But…Steve’s art was actually great—better than great.

Steve really was perfect.

“…I did most of it from memory, but I did have to look up some reference pictures for these ones, because I wasn’t there in the 40s to see the skyline, obviously—”

“Holy shit!” yelled Tony. “You drew these from memory?”

Steve gaped at him for a few seconds. He probably shouldn’t have yelled. But seriously! Tony didn’t even remember what he had for breakfast! Did he even have breakfast? He probably had coffee. Rhodey gave him some pizza for lunch. Or was that dinner?

But that was beside the point.

“Um…yes?”

Play it cool, Tony. Don’t sound so desperate.

“You’re amazing.”

Well, that backfired. He might as well swoon at this point.

Steve went red. “Thanks, Tony,” he said softly with a smile that set Tony’s heart fluttering.

Tony’s brain short-circuited from too many feelings, so he just smiled back stupidly. 

“Do you want a chair or something? I should have grabbed one, I just wasn’t thinking at all,” said Steve shoving his hands into his pockets.

Tony nodded, his mouth still not working. This was clearly an issue that needed to be resolved immediately. At least Pepper wasn’t here to witness this. Or Bucky, holy shit that’d be the worst thing ever. Stupid Bucky. He ruins everything.

“Okay, I’ll go get one. Do you want me to grab you some coffee too? There’s usually a table set up.”

Did he just offer to bring Tony coffee?

“I’d get down on one knee, but I don’t think I’d ever get back up again,” said Tony.

“For what?” asked Steve, glancing down at the floor, like Tony had dropped something.

Tony swallowed hard. “Uh, yeah coffee would be great.”

Steve smiled at him. “Okay. I’ll be right back.”

Tony was so fucked. Just not quite the way he wanted to be. Fuck all these feelings!

 

 

 

 

Steve and Tony walked back to the dorms, huddled against the biting wind. Tony almost wiped out on a patch of ice, and stubbornly refused to call for a medical escort. He muttered something about “never admitting defeat” so Steve resorted to hovering right beside Tony in case he slipped again.

Although Steve could have sworn that Tony blushed. Maybe that was just the wind.

Steve had felt like such a nervous idiot at the showing. He always did, but with Tony there, it was different. Tony deflected most of Steve’s professor’s criticisms and somehow spun them around into being positive comments about Steve’s work. A couple of freshman girls flustered Steve by firing off questions, but Tony smoothly cut in and took over. Tony could bullshit just as well as Bucky, and Steve managed to see his own work without creating his own mental list of criticisms.

He’d thanked Tony profusely as the show ended, and he didn’t miss the small smile that Tony had when he thought Steve had turned away.

Pepper had found them after and thanked Steve again for taking Tony back to the dorm. Not that he would have passed up that opportunity.

“You can tell Pepper I got you back alive,” said Steve as they stopped at Tony’s door.

Tony blinked owlishly at him. “Okay.”

“Have a good night,” said Steve taking a step toward his own room.

“Yes?” replied Tony, his face furrowed in confusion. But a moment later, Tony’s face was completely blank. “Right, you too.” He unlocked his door and shuffled inside, not sparing another glance at Steve.

Steve stared at the closed door for several long seconds. They were just friends, he reminded himself as he turned away. He could still spend some time working on chemistry tonight. Maybe he could even convince Bucky to help him out.

Steve hit his head on his doorframe. He was such an idiot. He should have invited Tony over to watch a movie or something. What if Bucky was right and Tony really was interested in him? Did he just completely blow it?

Steve sighed and pushed the door open. It moved about three inches before it bounced off of something and slammed in his face. Steve opened the door much more carefully and peered around through the small opening.

“Bucky? What are you doing?”

The room looked like a library had exploded inside of it. There were books on every surface and papers taped up the wall in crooked rows like badly hung wallpaper. Bucky wasn’t even visible, but there was a path leading away from the wall where Bucky must have dragged his desk over to the door.

“I’m busy, get out,” said Bucky from somewhere behind the door.

“What is going on?” Steve tried to push the door further open, but it didn’t budge.

“I’m trying to work! I have nine hours to finish a 20 page paper and I’m only on page three.” Bucky’s voice bordered on hysterical.

“You never procrastinate,” replied Steve, trying to sound calm.

“My fucking professor decided that my topic wasn’t good enough. Except he didn’t fucking tell me until today! So I have to rewrite the entire thing the day before it’s due and I need you to go.”

“What was wrong with the topic—”

“STEVE!” yelled Bucky. “I don’t have time! I love you, but get the fuck out of here.” With that, Bucky pushed the door closed and Steve stumbled backwards.

Great. He was still wearing his stupid suit and his phone was dead. If he didn’t know better, he’d think Bucky planned this.

Steve knocked on Tony’s door.

“I’m all alone, your plan has failed,” yelled Tony. “I’m going to die alone and unloved, just like Captain Hook. I demand pity guacamole and a hug.”

“Tony, it’s Steve,” said Steve, not really sure who Tony thought he was talking to. “Can I come in?”

There was a long pause until Steve could hear the click of Tony’s crutches and the door opened.

Tony appeared wearing a baggy "Geek Squad" sweatshirt and gym shorts. “Hey,” he said his voice higher than usual. Tony cleared his throat, blushing and Steve couldn’t help but smile.

“Bucky’s writing a paper. Do you mind if I hang out in here?” asked Steve.

Tony cleared his throat again. “That’s fine,” he said, holding the door open so Steve could enter. Steve shrugged off his coat and suit jacket and hung them on the back of Tony’s chair. Tony stared and muttered something about good tailoring, before dropping onto his bed.

Steve wasn’t sure if Tony meant to say that out loud, so he politely pretended he hadn’t heard and sat next to Tony.

“Do you want to watch a movie or something?” said Tony a little louder than necessary.

“Sure,” replied Steve, kicking off his shoes.

Tony tossed his crutches at the closet. “Cool. Let’s watch _Titanic_. JARVIS, queue it up.”

“Certainly, sir,” said that strangely British robotic voice from Tony's computer. It kind of made Steve miss Peggy—but he really didn’t need to be thinking about her right now.

The monitor went black as it powered down.

Tony sighed. “For fucks sake,” he muttered and hopped on his good leg to turn it back on. “Still working on a few glitches,” he said to Steve. The movie menu loaded and Tony pressed play before reaching over to the coffee pot on the window sill.

“We can watch something else,” said Steve nervously. He really didn’t need Tony to see him cry. Of all the movies, he just had to choose this one.

“Nah, I’m in the mood for it,” said Tony as the opening music blared. He poured himself a mug of coffee and took a long drink. He topped off the mug and put the pot back on the window sill.

Tony paused as he turned back toward the bed and Steve reached out to hold the mug for him. He really wouldn’t put it past Tony to think he could carry a full mug of coffee while hopping on one leg.

Tony settled next to him and made grabbing hands toward the coffee mug. He propped up his leg on a pile of sweatshirts that was on his bed while Steve sat with his back against the wall. Maybe if he stayed this far back out of Tony’s line of sight, Tony wouldn’t see how emotionally invested Steve was in this movie. There was a reason Bucky only let him cuddle while watching this movie.

Steve quickly found out that Tony was a talker during movies. He narrated the entire opening sequence, explaining the flaws of the technology they used to explore the Titanic wreckage. When they found the drawing of Rose wearing the Heart of the Ocean, Tony cut himself off in the middle of his rant about focal lenses and turned to Steve.

“Sorry. I talk. Except during horror movies, because I’m usually hiding behind Pepper, which you really didn’t need to know and I don’t know why I just told you that. Actually you could just forget I said anything.” Tony stared into his coffee mug like he wished he could hide inside of it.

“It’s okay,” said Steve. “I like it.”

And he did. He liked that Tony somehow knew every flaw in the design of the Titanic and even ended up explaining the science of how it sank and how it could have been prevented.

Tony also moved steadily closer to Steve as the movie progressed. Steve had gotten up to refill Tony’s coffee and when he sat back down. Tony had slid backward so that their shoulders touched. Tony leaned over to put his mug on the window sill about ten minutes after that and they ended up so close that Tony’s cast was digging into Steve’s thigh.

Steve made no effort to move. It wasn’t that uncomfortable.

Tony kept up his commentary, but focused more on sarcastic remarks about the characters than the engineering of the ship. Steve fell just a little bit in love. Or at least, a little bit more.  

Once they got to the scene when Jack draws Rose wearing the diamond, Tony went silent for a full minute, before he turned to look at Steve with a devilish smile.

“Do you draw nudes?” he asked. “Because you know, I’d be more than happy to strip down—“

Steve hit him with a pillow and laughed as Tony sputtered indignantly.

“Come on!” said Tony, trying to wrench the pillow away. “It’d be so good! I’m the picture of perfection over here.”

Another hard tug and Tony fell forward against Steve’s chest, his hands resting on Steve’s arms. Steve’s heart was beating out of control. If Tony leaned forward, just an inch they could…

Tony dropped his head onto Steve’s shoulder. “I can’t believe you’re turning down the opportunity to capture this body. Don’t you want to draw me like one of your French girls?”

His face was flushed and his brown eyes were bright. Steve wanted to kiss him.

“Are you comparing me to Jack Dawson?”

“No I’m comparing you to Leonardo DiCaprio,” said Tony as though Steve had suggested something preposterous. “Are you saying you wouldn’t draw me lying on a couch wearing nothing but a big ass blue diamond?”

 Yeah, like Steve would be able to concentrate enough to actually draw Tony like that. “That’s not what this scene is about. It’s about how she wanted to show Cal that he only ever saw her as an object, so that’s what she’s giving him.”

“Is that why you won’t draw me naked? Because you think it will objectify me?”

“Did you know that the director, James Cameron, actually drew this? He’s left-handed though, so he had to draw it so that they could invert the image because DiCaprio is right-handed.”

“How many times have you seen this movie?”

Steve didn’t answer. He really didn’t think he needed to.

Tony laughed and slid himself in between Steve’s legs so he could lay with his back against Steve’s chest. Tony put his hand next to Steve’s, so close that their fingers were touching.

What did this mean? Were they still just friends? Or was Tony going for a “friends with benefits” kind of scenario?

“Do you think he brought a condom? Did they even have condoms in 1912?” asked Tony. “He kind of has this virgin vibe going, but like he literally hung out with hookers in Paris, so why is he the one that looks so surprised to be having sex? I never understood that.”

“She means more to him,” answered Steve wistfully. “It’s special.”

 

 

 

 

Tony straight up died. Feelings. Feelings were happening and his chest hurt. Was he having a heart attack?

He had literally been trying to flirt for this entire movie, but just kind of ended up lying against Steve and talking about obviously stupid engineering mistakes and bitchy rich people. (He might be one of those bitchy rich people, but he ignored that for the time being.)

And then Steve had to talk about meaningful sex! Tony could actually visualize the expression that would be on Pepper’s face if she was here. He needed to talk about feelings. This was the opening. Fuck, he still wasn’t ready! But maybe he could trick Steve into talking about feelings first? Would that help?

“So hey, we had sex that one time,” said Tony, because tact was his strong point.

He actually felt Steve go tense. Fuck! That was wrong. His internal Pepper shook her head in exasperation.

“I mean…it didn’t…it wasn’t…we were drunk. I just…it really doesn’t matter. We can just forget about that and just be friends,” sputtered Steve.

He moved his hand away. Tony spent the last 10 minutes trying to hold that hand. Fuck! Okay, he could do this.

“Or we could…not forget about it,” said Tony. Deep breath. “Because…I like you, like, as a person and not just because we had sex.”

“You like me?” echoed Steve. Tony wanted to turn around so he could actually see Steve’s face. But he also really didn’t want to see the disgust that was probably happening.

“Kind of a lot,” replied Tony. “I don’t make a complete fool out of myself in front of just anyone. And, like, we could date, if you wanted to…do that with me.”

“Oh…okay.” Steve took a very deep breath. What did that mean?

Yeah, he was a lot to deal with, but he was expecting a slightly better reaction…like kissing? Spontaneous removal of clothing? A song and dance may have been a bit much, but silence…Tony did not like silence.

“Should I write you a song for the occasion? Maybe sing a little Cheap Trick to get the point across?”

Steve stayed silent and unmoving behind him. Tony probably should have had this conversation in a position where he could actually see Steve’s face. Steve was probably horrified and trying to come up with an exit plan.

Abort, abort!

Okay, so running wasn’t an option because of the obvious knee issue. He couldn’t call anyone because his phone was in his jacket across the room. He could fake a heart attack. Grab his left arm and yell a lot.

A better plan would be to just drop in a dead faint. Except…would Steve just think he was a damsel in distress again? He needed to faint in a masculine way. Like pass out from exhaustion, or get punched by a gorilla.

What was that noise? Was he still talking? What was he talking about? What words were coming out of his mouth? Was he really explaining JARVIS’s programming to Steve? Okay, that wasn’t too bad. At least he wasn’t sitting around gushing about his feelings.

“Tony,” said Steve, cutting through the rambling coming out of Tony’s mouth. “Do you want to get dinner tomorrow?”

Wait, what?

“Like a date,” said Steve.

Tony scooted away from Steve just enough so that he could actually turn to see his face. “Why would you want to do that?”

Steve made that confused puppy face again and, why? That wasn’t necessary because it kind of made Tony want to kiss him, but also—what did that mean?

“I’ve had a crush on you since freshman year,” said Steve. The blush was back. Okay, that was a good sign.

Holy shit, Steve fucking Rogers had a crush on him! What the fuck was his life?

“You did? You do? Like really?”

Steve nodded and ducked his head bashfully.

“Even when you watched me completely embarrass myself because of Shakespeare…and clowns? And when I walked off a wall? And got food poisoning? And—”

Steve silenced Tony with a kiss.

It was a fucking great kiss and they completely missed the second half of _Titanic_. Tony was also perfectly caffeinated

Maybe a little over-caffeinated, to tell the truth.

 

 

 

 

18 Months Later…

 

Tony had 13 hours and 27 minutes until he handed in his thesis for review. Dum-E waved the countdown clock at him every 30 minutes and chirped far too enthusiastically. He was going to need a lot more coffee to get through this.

(He really needed sleep.)

He didn’t need sleep. There was time for that kind of nonsense when he was dead. Or in 13 hours, but not before then. (He’d already been awake for 62 hours, what difference did 13 more make?) Fuck sleep.

Tony looked into the eight different mugs scattered across his desk and on the floor, but they were all empty. So disappointing. Now he’d actually have to move to get coffee. Ugh.

He shuffled all the way to the kitchen—which was like 10ft behind him, but still inconvenient—to the coffee pot. He wasn’t allowed to keep it on his desk where it belonged. So unfair. It was his apartment! (Okay, _their_ apartment. And there was that time when Tony knocked it over during a blow job, which was painful and terrifying…so maybe it was justified.)

He took a clean mug out of the dish rack and reached for the coffee pot, but it was empty. Tony yawned (stop that!) and slid the coffee drawer open.

Yes, coffee had its own drawer, it was special.

At the bottom of the drawer, there was a pink post-it note with “IOU” written in Bucky’s crap handwriting. There was a smiley face in the “O” like that somehow made it better? It didn’t. That asshat was always stealing his coffee! Bucky was even allowed to have a coffee maker on his desk, but not Tony. Ridiculous, just absolutely—

Tony was out of coffee—what the actual fuck? The panic settled in and Tony stared at the empty drawer in absolute horror.

There was no coffee! Fuck! It was 4am, where was he going to get coffee? What was he going to do? How was he going to survive? He yawned again. How could he panic and yawn at the same time?

Tony flung himself through the bedroom door and shook the pile of blankets sleeping diagonally across the mattress.

“What happened?” Steve’s blond hair poked out of the blankets, but nothing else.

“We’re out of coffee. This is not a drill!” said Tony, shaking him again. This was an emergency!

“Oh yeah. Bucky took the last bag,” muttered Steve, his head sinking back into the blankets. “We’ll get some more in the…” He yawned loudly and disappeared completely under the blanket. “…morning.”

“I only have thirteen more hours. I need some fucking coffee!” Tony was not hysterical, okay? He was under a lot of stress all because of Bucky. Why wasn’t Steve defending his honor? Where was the loyalty?

On a side note, the bed was really comfortable. He wanted to lie down next to Steve. He could just sleep for a couple minutes…

Tony shook his head. No! No sleeping!

“Steve!”

A very sexy arm poked out from the comforter and the next thing Tony knew, he was being dragged into the blankety depths of the bed.

“What are you doing?” Tony did not squeak like a preteen girl—his throat was just dry from the lack of coffee. “I have so much work to do—”

“Your thesis is perfect,” said Steve, his voice deep and calm. He wrapped his arms tighter around Tony when he struggled to break free. “You know it is, so how about you stay with me and get some sleep?”

“No, it’s not ready,” said Tony, pushing halfheartedly at Steve’s arms. He was so tired…

No! He wasn’t tired! He had so much to do.

Steve kissed his cheek. “Your thesis is perfect, even Bruce and Jane said so—”

“What do they know?”

“—and Bucky proofread it twice. You know what you’re talking about, so stop worrying.”

“I hate Bucky,” muttered Tony, losing the will to struggle. Steve was so warm…he wanted to sleep…Steve said he could sleep…

“No you don’t,” replied Steve. “Go to sleep.”

“He stole my coffee,” replied Tony, his reasoning completely sound.

Steve huffed out a laugh. “You stole his roommate.”

“I did not. I can’t help that I’m irresistible.”

“Those Scooby Doo pajamas are just too much to handle,” replied Steve dryly. That was uncalled for—Tony had a right to wear whatever pants he desired in his own apartment.

“They’re comfortable!”

Steve laughed as Tony curled closer and tucked his head under Steve’s chin. He could probably afford to sleep for a couple hours…

Maybe Steve would bring him coffee in bed. He deserved that. He’s going to make Bucky go to Starbucks and buy him one of those stupidly expensive mochas or something. No, he’d rather Bucky just bought him regular coffee. How could he make Bucky suffer for this? He could get Clint to let him in when Bucky is gone and steal his coffee maker. Then Bucky can’t use Tony’s coffee. Great idea.

“Stop muttering about coffee and go to sleep,” said Steve. He threaded his fingers through Tony’s hair and Tony’s heavy eyelids finally won.

“I will have my revenge,” mumbled Tony.


End file.
